Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have summoned Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, the former U.K. prince, to submit to questioning about the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In a Thursday letter to Mountbatten Windsor, who Buckingham Palace stripped of his title last week, the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.), and 14 other Democrats on the panel requested his cooperation in helping them identify any of Epstein’s co-conspirators and enablers.
“Well-documented allegations against you, along with your long-standing friendship with Mr. Epstein, indicate that you may possess knowledge of his activities relevant to our investigation,” they wrote.
Mountbatten Windsor, younger brother of King Charles and son of the late Queen Elizabeth, was a long-time associate of Epstein. In 2014, a woman named Virginia Giuffre alleged that Epstein sex-trafficked her to the then-prince when she was 17 years old. Mountbatten Windsor, who denied all allegations, and Giuffre reached an out-of-court settlement in 2022 over her sexual assault claims against him. She died by suicide earlier this year.
The Democrats’ request to Mountbatten Windsor noted his friendship with Epstein as well as a recently revealed email he sent him 14 years ago shortly after photos of Mountbatten Windsor with Giuffre became public.
“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,” they wrote.
Congress cannot mandate a foreign national to testify before lawmakers, leaving Mountbatten Windsor with the option to ignore the summons.
The Democrats asked him for a response by Nov. 20, citing the “urgency and gravity of this matter.”
“Rich and powerful men have evaded justice for far too long,” Garcia said upon the letter’s release. “Now, former Prince Andrew has the opportunity to come clean and provide justice for the survivors.”
Subramanyam said Mountbatten Windsor’s title loss shows “there is more to this story.”
“If he is innocent, then he can clear his name,” he continued. “And if not, our investigation will show that, and the victims will receive long overdue justice.”
Buckingham Palace did not immediately return requests for comment on the Democrats’ request.
President Donald Trump’s administration has been under fire since July when his Attorney General Pam Bondi said she wouldn’t be releasing any more Epstein files, even though Trump repeatedly campaigned on making them all public.
Since then, the House Oversight Committee has sought other ways to force their release. When Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) is sworn in, Democrats will have the numbers to force a vote on their release. However, House Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to swear her in during the government shutdown.
House Minority Speaker Hakeem Jeffries accused Johnson of dragging his feet on the matter Monday, saying he and the Trump administration were running a “pedophile protection program.”
