The British royal family is setting a precedent for how to handle convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s associates. However, it might be falling on deaf ears in the quiet halls of Congress across the pond.
On Friday, Buckingham Palace announced that Prince Andrew, the brother of King Charles III, would no longer be using his royal titles due to his alleged affiliation with the late Epstein.
“In discussion with the King, and my immediate and wider family, we have concluded the continued accusations about me distract from the work of His Majesty and the Royal Family,” Prince Andrew said in a statement obtained by People. “I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first. I stand by my decision five years ago to stand back from public life.”
The royal added that he “vigorously” denies the accusations against him.
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Prince Andrew was accused of forcing a 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre to have sex with him on Epstein’s island. According to the lawsuit, which was later settled, she was forced to have sex with him multiple times between 1999 and 2002 on the island as well as in New York and London. Giuffre later died by suicide.
Prince Andrew initially retreated into the shadows when the news first came to light in 2019, and three years later the late Queen Elizabeth III stripped her second son of his military titles and patronages. However, with continued public eyes on Epstein’s associates, the royal family is insisting he remove himself in full.
In an interview with Giuffre’s ghostwriter, Amy Wallace, she told “CBS Sunday Morning” that Giuffre was a big fan of Trump for one reason.
“She was a huge Trump fan, because he campaigned on releasing the Epstein files,” Wallace revealed. “She was very excited that he had made that one of the main planks of his campaign, and she felt validated by it.”
Giuffre’s posthumous memoir, “Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice,” comes out on Tuesday.
While Prince Andrew may be paying his price for associating with Epstein, those in the U.S. with ties to the financier—like President Donald Trump—are still having their day in the sun.
The president has faced multiple accusations painting a picture of his friendship with Epstein.
From grinning throwback photos alongside Epstein to an alleged birthday card Trump personally made for him, the public perception of Trump and Epstein’s relationship is strong.
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Then again, it’s hard to know much about Epstein’s affairs when the files containing all of that information are tied up in the hands of a government shutdown.
While the public has roared and demanded the release of the files, House Speaker Mike Johnson has been accused across the aisle of delaying a House vote. He’s refusing to swear in Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva, who will be the final signature on the petition that would force Johnson to hold a vote on a bipartisan bill, compelling the administration to release the files.
It’s unclear what will happen to the vote, but the White House has already made it clear that they intend to delegitimize the cause altogether.
Despite Trump once being on the side of transparency, following a slew of accusations that he is actually on the “list” himself, he’s switched to calling the Epstein files a Democrat-backed “hoax.”
In other words, the White House doesn’t seem poised to be stripping any titles or pushing people out of their roles any time soon.
