CNN Legal Analyst Rips Trump DOJ For ‘Embarrassing’ Lack Of Epstein Investigations: ‘Perhaps Purposeful’ | EUROtoday

CNN senior authorized analyst Elie Honig says U.Okay. authorities and Congress are leagues forward of the Department of Justice of their investigative pursuits of potential co-conspirators of late little one predator Jeffrey Epstein, calling the “embarrassing” lack of prices “perhaps purposeful.”

“The United States Department of Justice is getting lapped by both Congress and the British authorities on follow-up investigations around the Epstein files,” Honig wrote Friday in an editorial printed in New York Magazine’s Intelligencer. “There’s no excuse for either.”

He continued, “As British police arrest astonishingly powerful men for their dealings with Jeffrey Epstein and the U.S. House of Representatives tries to force titans of finance and politics to answer tough questions, our Justice Department lags far behind.”

Honig went on to notice that it’s “not even clear the DoJ is doing anything at all.”

U.Okay. regulation enforcement arrested former Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor final week on “suspicion of misconduct in public office” after the newest tranche of Epstein recordsdata appeared to counsel the ex-royal gave Epstein confidential data in 2010 and 2011, in accordance with the BBC.

British authorities have additionally arrested Peter Mandelson, a former U.Okay. ambassador to the U.S., on suspicion of misconduct. Honig argued England has put the DOJ to disgrace by launching these investigations in “a matter of weeks.”

“British police investigated and arrested a former prince (Andrew) and a lord (Mandelson); have subjected both men, and others around them, to extensive questioning; and have conducted searches at properties associated with the subjects,” wrote Honig.

He argued, “the most memorable step taken by our Justice Department since the release of the files was Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s public-service announcement that ’the American people need to understand that it isn’t a crime to party with Mr. Epstein.”

Blanche made the argument throughout a Fox News interview earlier this month.

Honig went on to criticize President Donald Trump for dismissing the case as a “hoax” and the DOJ for its “proactive excuse-making,” citing Blanche’s declare earlier this month that the litany of disturbing emails “doesn’t allow us necessarily to prosecute somebody.”

Honig wrote, “Not exactly the tenacious prosecutorial posture Blanche and I learned during our concurrent early days at the Southern District of New York. But hey, if our Justice Department isn’t going to make meaningful use of its own Epstein files, at least others will.”

He went on to laud final yr’s profitable bipartisan effort to cross the Epstein Files Transparency Act and praised the House Oversight Committee for subpoenaing “powerful people” and “making them face meaningful questioning under oath.”

Among them was retail billionaire Les Wexner, who maintained final week throughout 5 hours of questioning not understanding about Epstein’s criminality, which Honig stated the DOJ may rigorously examine by speaking to witnesses, analyzing e-mail data and extra.

“Yet we’ve seen no indication of DoJ doing any such thing,” he wrote.

Honig then famous that they haven’t even subpoenaed “the most powerful of all former Epstein pals, Trump himself,” and that it’s “galling” Congress has made extra headway “with minimal investigative staff” than DOJ prosecutors have with “the vast resources” at their disposal.

“Meanwhile, the British authorities and Congress forge ahead,” Honig wrote Friday. “It’s an embarrassing moment for our Justice Department’s leadership and a telling indictment of its own stubborn — and perhaps purposeful — indifference.”

Read the total editorial at New York Magazine.