- Democratic House Oversight members have formally demanded Prince Andrew testify about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, alleging he holds key information on co-conspirators.
- The letter sets a November 20 response deadline; failure could prompt subpoenas, though legal and diplomatic hurdles likely prevent U.S. enforcement.
In a dramatic escalation of the long-simmering Jeffrey Epstein saga, U.S. lawmakers have issued a stark summons to the former Prince Andrew, the once-favored son of Queen Elizabeth II, compelling him to testify before Congress about his deep entanglement with the late financier and convicted sex trafficker.
The directive, delivered in a pointed letter dated Thursday to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor—the man stripped of his “His Royal Highness” title and military honors—comes from Democratic members of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
They argue that Andrew holds “key information about Epstein’s co-conspirators and enablers,” potentially unlocking fresh leads in a case that has ensnared elites for decades.
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“Rich and powerful men have evaded justice for far too long,” declared Representative Robert Garcia, the committee’s ranking Democrat, in a statement that underscored the bipartisan outrage fueling this probe.
“Now, former Prince Andrew has the opportunity to come clean and provide justice for the survivors.”
The letter sets a firm deadline: Andrew must respond by November 20.
Failure to comply could intensify calls for formal subpoenas, though legal experts warn of the diplomatic tightrope involved in compelling a British royal to appear across the Atlantic.
This congressional salvo arrives amid a torrent of revelations that have further eroded Andrew’s already crumbling defenses.
Just last week, on October 30, Buckingham Palace issued a rare public rebuke, announcing that King Charles III had evicted his younger brother from the opulent Royal Lodge—a 30-room Georgian mansion on the Windsor estate where Andrew had resided for two decades under a sweetheart “peppercorn rent” deal, following an initial £8.5 million payment in 2003.
“These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him,” the palace statement read, a carefully worded nod to Andrew’s persistent claims of innocence.
“Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.”
The Epstein Web: From Balmoral Invites to Leaked Emails
Andrew’s friendship with Epstein, which he insists began innocently in 1999 and ended decisively in 2006, has long been a lightning rod for scrutiny.
Yet a cascade of recently leaked correspondence paints a far murkier picture, contradicting the royal’s public narrative and fueling demands for accountability.
In his infamous 2019 BBC Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis, Andrew portrayed his bond with Epstein as peripheral—insisting he was “mainly friends with [Ghislaine] Maxwell,” Epstein’s convicted accomplice and ex-girlfriend.
He described a single, “honorable” trip to New York in December 2010 to personally sever ties, claiming no further contact ensued.
But emails unearthed by the British press tell a different story.
One, sent in February 2011—just weeks before Virginia Giuffre’s explosive first interview hit The Mail on Sunday—shows Andrew enlisting a Metropolitan Police protection officer to investigate her background.
“It would also seem she has a criminal record in the States,” Andrew wrote, providing her date of birth and Social Security number for a probe.
“I have given her DoB [date of birth] and social security number for investigation with XXX, the on duty ppo [personal protection officer].”
Another missive, also from February 2011, undercuts his timeline entirely.
Responding to Giuffre’s interview—which included the now-iconic photograph of Andrew’s arm draped around her waist at Maxwell’s London home—Andrew emailed Epstein: “I’m just as concerned for you! Don’t worry about me! It would seem we are in this together and will have to rise above it. Otherwise keep in close touch and we’ll play some more soon!!!!”
These exchanges came months after Epstein’s 2008 guilty plea to soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida, a leniency critics still decry as emblematic of elite impunity.
Andrew’s largesse extended beyond Epstein.
The financier bailed out Andrew’s ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, with a £15,000 loan to stave off her mounting debts.
In a January 2011 email—again, post-Andrew’s supposed cutoff—Ferguson gushed: “How can I thank you enough? You are a friend indeed and I will one day give it to you back. But I can not have the words to thank you now. Sometimes the heart speaks better than the words. You have my heart. With lots of love, dear Jeffrey.”
The fallout was swift: Ferguson was ousted from seven charities, her reputation in tatters alongside her former husband’s.
Giuffre’s allegations remain the scandal’s searing core.
In her 2021 New York civil lawsuit—settled by Andrew for an undisclosed sum in 2022, without admission of liability—she accused him of sexually abusing her three times in 2001, when she was 17 and under Epstein and Maxwell’s trafficking network.
Transported from London to New York and Epstein’s private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Giuffre detailed in court filings, media accounts, and her posthumously published memoir Nobody’s Girl how she was coerced into encounters with Andrew, fearing lethal reprisal if she resisted.
During the Newsnight interview, Andrew infamously dismissed the possibility of intimacy with Giuffre, citing an ironclad alibi: his inability to sweat due to an Epstein overdose scare during the Falklands War.
“No,” he said when pressed.
“And without putting too fine a point on it, if you’re a man it is a positive act to have sex with somebody. You have to have to take some sort of positive action and so therefore if you try to forget it’s very difficult to try and forget a positive action and I do not remember anything.”
The interview, a public relations catastrophe, accelerated Andrew’s isolation from the royal fold.
Royal Exile: From Palace Favorite to Sandringham Outcast
King Charles’s recent moves mark a decisive break.
Beyond the Royal Lodge eviction, Andrew has been relegated to the more modest Wood Farm on the Sandringham Estate, with limited financial backing from the crown.
The palace’s October 30 statement, issued in the wake of Nobody’s Girl and the email leaks, signals an end to tacit protection.
“This doesn’t surprise me because I know there have been investigation going on in the states for some time which have been re-opened,” said Andrew Lownie, author of the damning biography Entitled: How the Royals Borrowed from the Rich to Fund a Lavish Lifestyle.
Speaking to Newsweek, Lownie hailed the congressional letter as “a welcome development… important that we get to the bottom of what’s actually happened because it shows there will be no fear or favor for Andrew in the future.”
Yet optimism is tempered by history.
Past U.S. Department of Justice efforts to secure Andrew’s testimony fizzled in 2020, with the prince stonewalling investigators.
Legal analyst Neama Rahmani, president of West Coast Trial Lawyers in Los Angeles, is bluntly skeptical.
“There is a ‘zero chance’ that he testifies and the letter means ‘nothing’ because it’s just a request,” Rahmani told Newsweek.
“They can subpoena him but they would need Republican support. I think they would get it but it is not enforceable, the U.K. is not going to extradite him. He’ll never show up in the United States, that would be incredibly reckless and foolish.”
The palace, for its part, maintains a hands-off posture: Decisions about compliance rest with Andrew personally, not the monarchy.
But in an era of eroding public trust—polls show royal approval at historic lows—this could test Charles’s delicate balancing act between family loyalty and institutional survival.
British commentators speculate the summons could unearth more about Epstein’s access to royal inner sanctums, including invitations to Balmoral, the queen’s secluded Scottish retreat—a privilege denied to most courtiers.
A Reckoning Long Overdue? Survivors and Lawmakers Weigh In
For Epstein’s survivors, the letter represents a flicker of vindication.
Giuffre, who died in 2024, chronicled her descent into Epstein’s orbit: Homeless from age 11, surviving through child sexual abuse and transactional encounters, only to be ensnared by the financier after a chance meeting at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
Her 3,600-word Mail on Sunday profile in 2011 was a bombshell, detailing the photo op that has haunted Andrew ever since.
Now, with Maxwell serving a 20-year sentence and Epstein dead by suicide in 2019, eyes turn to those who partied in the shadows.
As the November 20 deadline looms, the world watches: Will Andrew, the self-styled “spare” turned pariah, finally confront his past?
Or will diplomatic niceties shield him once more?
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