A sitting U.S. congressman accused Prince Andrew of committing sex crimes on American soil.
Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, made the accusation from the House floor in Washington during a speech pressing the Justice Department to pursue prosecutions tied to the late Jeffrey Epstein.
Massie has been a driving force behind releasing the first batch of Epstein files. In his floor speech, he named multiple prominent figures he wants federal investigators to scrutinize, including former Barclays chief Jes Staley and magician David Copperfield.
Then he turned to the British royal.
“And Prince Andrew, who committed sex crimes in the United States,” Massie said.
He did not stop there. Massie accused the Justice Department of failing the public on the Epstein case more broadly. “We want perpetrators of these crimes to be investigated and prosecuted,” he said. “Perhaps hearing these names will shame the Department of Justice into delivering justice.”
As originally reported, the allegations against Prince Andrew, born Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, stem largely from the account of Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers. Giuffre claimed Epstein trafficked her to the royal and that she had sex with him three times when she was 17 years old. She alleged two of those encounters happened in the United States, one in New York and one on Epstein’s private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Andrew has consistently and forcefully denied committing any sexual offenses. He has not been criminally charged in connection with the allegations.
Massie’s floor speech puts fresh congressional pressure on the Justice Department at a moment when public interest in the Epstein case is surging following the release of related files. By naming Andrew directly from the House floor, Massie gave the accusations a formal public platform and a degree of political weight that private statements do not carry.
The former Duke of York settled a civil lawsuit brought by Giuffre in 2022. The terms of that settlement were not disclosed, and no admission of wrongdoing was made as part of it. Andrew stepped back from royal duties in 2019 following a widely criticized BBC interview in which he addressed the Epstein allegations.
Whether Massie’s public call moves the Justice Department to act remains to be seen. The department has not publicly responded to his remarks.