Very well said by Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-VA11) this morning on MSNOW:
- “Well, look, I think the royals, for for all their faults, they take a long view, and they recognize that Donald Trump’s time in office is waning. It will come to an end in a couple of years. And I think they want to ensure that the trans-Atlantic relationship and alliance endures long beyond Donald Trump. So, they’re going to I think the king today will subtly, delicately do his best to hold that alliance together, to call on those of us in Congress to support that alliance in the hopes that it can survive Donald Trump’s efforts to destroy it.”
- [“You’re part of the Epstein survivors meeting today amid this visit by the king. As we mentioned, his brother Andrew’s faced considerable fallout from previous ties to Epstein. And King Charles has declined to meet with these survivors on this trip, pointing to the ongoing investigation in the UK. How’s that response being received?”] “It’s disappointing. I think it’s a huge missed opportunity. And look, you put yourself in the shoes of these survivors. We had Attorney General Pam Bondi refuse to meet with them and discuss the release of the files with them. And now we have the king refused to meet with them. It’s yet another kind of slap in the face as they have courageously advocated for transparency and accountability. [It] would have been very powerful for the king to sit with them and just say, ‘I hear you, I respect what you have gone through, I’m going to do everything in my power to ensure that there’s justice.’ It’s disappointing that he’s not going to do that.”
- “I think [Epstein survivors] want to hear his commitment and the British government’s commitment to uh an open and full investigation. Even if that investigation reveals wrongdoing by the king’s brother. I just think the survivors here in the United States and across the world want to be reassured that the wealthy, the powerful, and the well-connected aren’t going to get off scot-free. And hearing that from the king would be very powerful.”
- “What [survivors] want now is action. They want governments to take action. Whether it’s here in the United States or in the UK. The time for talk is over. It’s the time for action. That’s what they want to see.”
- “I would lay [the lack of accountability] at the feet of the Department of Justice. Not only have they not released the files, they continue to redact files and they’ve refused, in my view, to follow up on a lot of issues that have been revealed either through the files or through the oversight committee’s investigations. Key figures close to Epstein and Maxwell, never even interviewed by the FBI. FBI doesn’t have all the facts. DOJ doesn’t have all the facts. That could lead to additional prosecutions if they ran everything down. So far, the DOJ, now led by Todd Blanche, is refusing even to consider that.”
- “Radio silence. You know, Chairman Comer, the Republican chairman of the [House Oversight] committee, said he was going to hold former AG Bondi to the subpoena, bipartisan subpoena that our committee issued. He said he’s been negotiating privately with with her lawyers, but we have heard nothing. She missed a scheduled deposition on the 14th. In my view, she’s in violation of the subpoena, in violation of the law. We’re going to look at contempt charges for her and ask our Republican colleagues to join us in a good faith effort to enforce Congress’s oversight role. This was a bipartisan subpoena. She doesn’t get to choose whether she’s going to comply with it or not. She has to show up and answer questions.”
