After Former Prince Andrew’s Arrest Due To Epstein Connections, Members Of Congress Call For More

After U.K. authorities' Thursday arrest of former British royal Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, American lawmakers bemoaned the lack of legal consequences for the rich and powerful connected to Jeffrey Epstein inside the U.S. and called on the federal government to push harder on the people who were close to him.

Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest came after he was stripped of his royal titles last October due to his relationship with the late sex offender. The king’s brother represents just one example of Europe holding its political class to account over Epstein, while powerful Americans who corresponded with the financier have largely avoided that same legal scrutiny.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who drew President Donald Trump’s ire amid his successful push to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act in Congress last year, urged federal officials to follow the example of their British counterparts.

“Prince Andrew was just arrested,” he wrote on X on Thursday. “This was the metric I established for success of the Epstein Files Transparency Act that [Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)] and I got passed. Now we need JUSTICE in the United States. It’s time for [Attorney General Pam Bondi] and [FBI Director Kash Patel] to act!”

Congress has looked to investigate Mountbatten-Windsor’s relationship with Epstein. But his involvement in the case has presented a legal quagmire for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has been probing the Epstein case for months. The panel's Democrats had called for him to answer questions from lawmakers and staff, but constraints on congressional subpoena power proved to be an obstacle.

"We're pretty much limited to the United States," Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the committee’s chair, said last year when asked about looking into non-U.S. citizens like Mountbatten-Windsor. "We're interested in that as well, but ... we don't have authority over foreign countries."

In 2019, Mountbatten-Windsor was accused in a civil lawsuit of sexually assaulting Virginia Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s accusers, but he denied all allegations. On Friday, U.K. police arrested Mountbatten-Windsor on suspicion of misconduct in public office and announced that they were carrying out searches of two properties. He has not been charged in the case, nor has he been charged with a crime in the U.S.

In a statement Thursday, Comer said “there must be accountability for anyone who was involved in Jeffrey Epstein’s horrific crimes. The Justice Department’s transparency is ensuring that no one is above the law — even British royalty.”

The files released by the Justice Department showed that Epstein corresponded with high-profile American figures — including former President Bill Clinton, now-Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, MAGA commentator Steve Bannon and former Obama White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler.

And while some figures have faced professional repercussions — Ruemmler, for example, is set to resign from her role at Goldman Sachs — no additional charges in the U.S. have been brought following the public release of hundreds of thousands of pages of emails and investigatory details related to Epstein.

Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, will testify before House Oversight at the end of the month, Comer announced in early February. Both have said they had no knowledge of any of Epstein’s wrongdoing and have not been accused of any crimes related to Epstein.

Lutnick has denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein, saying he had only passing interactions, including a lunch with his family on Epstein’s island, and the White House has stuck by him. “I didn’t look through the documents with any fear whatsoever because I know, and my wife knows, that I have done absolutely nothing wrong in any possible regard,” Lutnick said at a congressional hearing earlier this month.

Ruemmler has insisted for years that her relationship with Epstein was professional and denied wrongdoing. Bannon said in a recent statement to The New York Times that his relationship with Epstein was professional and part of an effort to produce a documentary: “That’s the only lens through which these private communications should be viewed — a documentary filmmaker working, over a period of time, to secure 50 hours of interviews from a reclusive subject.”

Then there’s the president. Trump’s name comes up thousands of times in the Epstein files, but there is no evidence to suggest he ever visited Epstein’s island or participated in any wrongdoing related to the financier. He also has denied wrongdoing and said he cut off contact with Epstein years ago.

The president has sought to turn the screws on Democrats he alleges were closer to Epstein, urging Bondi to investigate.

Just a day after traveling to Ohio for a closed-door deposition with billionaire businessman and former Epstein associate Les Wexner, House Oversight Democrats promised more action in the halls of Congress.

“No one connected to Jeffrey Epstein will escape accountability for their crimes,” the committee wrote on X on Thursday. “Our work is just beginning, and we will pursue justice for every individual who participated in the abuse of women and girls.”

Three House Republican women — Reps. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — joined with Massie and the chamber’s Democrats in pushing the Epstein files legislation to the floor last November.

Greene decried “the current state of MAGA and MAHA” in a post on X on Thursday. She has frequently called on Trump to refocus his domestic policy priorities, and she left Congress in January amid a split with the president stemming in part from her advocacy over Epstein.

“The UK has arrested Andrew because of the Epstein files and over here the President signed an EO protecting cancer causing Glyphosate in our foods and we have zero Epstein related arrest and investigations since release of the files,” she wrote.

Mace, meanwhile, boasted about the role she and her House colleagues played in bringing attention to the deceased sex offender last year.

“If only someone had called for Prince Andrew's arrest months ago... Oh wait. We did,” she wrote on X, one of nearly 20 posts and reposts she made on the platform in the hours after Andrew’s arrest Thursday. "The UK has officially done more to prosecute Epstein predators than our own government,” she wrote. “Shameful.”

Recriminations in Europe have been further sweeping.

Peter Mandelson, the U.K.’s former ambassador to Washington, lost his job last September after emails surfaced proving his friendship with Epstein continued after the financier first faced charges in 2008. The scandal over Mandelson’s initial appointment nearly brought down Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who never even knew Epstein, and led to the resignation of a top aide.

Police in Norway are also investigating Thorbjørn Jagland, the country’s former prime minister, over corruption allegations involving Epstein.

Hailey Fuchs contributed to this report.