The leading Democrat on the
House oversight committee, California congressman Robert Garcia, asked King
Charles III’s younger brother to assist with the investigation in a letter that
was released on Thursday.
A week after Mountbatten
Windsor consented to give up his rented house in Windsor and was deprived of
his royal title, the formal request to respond to inquiries was made.
Documents and flight logs
that the committee subpoenaed from Epstein’s estate and made public contain
references to Mountbatten Windsor. Additionally, the late Virginia Giuffre, one
of Epstein’s attack victims, has accused him of sexual assault.
“The oversight committee
will investigate allegations of abuse by Mountbatten Windsor, and will seek information
on Epstein’s operations, network, and associates based on the men’s
longstanding and well-documented friendship,”
the committee said in a press release.
It demanded information
from Mountbatten Windsor on specifics of his relationship with Epstein, who
killed himself in a New York jail cell in 2019. Andrew has always strongly
denied any wrongdoing.
“It has been publicly
reported that your friendship with Mr Epstein began in 1999 and that you
remained close through and after his 2008 conviction for procuring minors for
prostitution,”
the letter said.
It continued:
“It has
also been reported that you traveled with Epstein to his New York residence,
the Queen’s residence at Balmoral, and to Mr Epstein’s private island in the US
Virgin Islands, where you have been accused of abusing minors. This close
relationship with Mr Epstein, coupled with the recently revealed 2011 email
exchange in which you wrote to him ‘we are in this together’, further confirms
our suspicion that you may have valuable information about the crimes committed
by Mr Epstein and his co-conspirators.”
Thirteen other Egalitarians
on the commission co-signed the letter, according to an announcement, and it
asks for a response by November 20.
Still, Congress can not
force a foreign public to testify, and Garcia doesn’t have the authority to
subpoena the former Napoleon.
According to US
authorities, Mountbatten Windsor didn’t reply to US requests for an interview
in 2020. Prosecutors and the FBI had gotten in touch with Andrew’s attorneys to
follow up on his earlier promise that he was “willing to help any
appropriate law enforcement agency,” according to Geoffrey Berman, the US
attorney for the southern district of New York at the time.
Suhas Subramanyam, a
Democrat from Virginia and another signatory, stated that “it is vital
that Andrew cooperates with the ongoing investigation” following the
committee hearing testimony from Epstein’s victims and the public release of
papers that had been leaked. He can clear his name if he is innocent.
Subramanyam added:
“And
if not, our investigation will show that, and the victims will receive long
overdue justice. The Royal Family’s actions stripping Andrew of his titles show
there is more to this story.”
The letter was sent on the
same day that Mountbatten Windsor’s royal title of prince was formally revoked
by the British king. The move was publicly declared a week ago by Charles III
by the issuance of a “letters patent,” which the royal office published
in the Gazette, the official public record of the United Kingdom.
Which House committee is handling the Epstein probe?
The US House Committee handling the disquisition into Jeffrey
Epstein is the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Chaired by
James Comer, this commission has been laboriously subpoenaing documents from
the Department of Justice, reviewing the civil government’s disquisition of
Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, and seeking evidence from
applicable individualities.
The commission is probing implicit mismanagement of the civil
disquisition, circumstances around Epstein’s death, and the broader coitus
trafficking network. It has also issued processes to colorful former government
officers to gather information on Epstein’s conditioning and his connections.
This commission is crucial in overseeing the congressional inquiry into the
Epstein case.
The panel’s approach reflects a broader trouble to insure
responsibility among influential individualities connected to Epstein.
