‘Embarrassing’: Elie Honig Says DOJ is Getting ‘Lapped’ by Congress and Brits on Epstein Investigations

Credit: (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File) and CNN

CNN’s Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig said that the Department of Justice is getting “lapped” by both the British authorities and Congress in their subsequent investigations into those affiliated with Jeffrey Epstein, calling the disparity “embarrassing” in a Friday Intelligencer column.

Honig, a former state and federal prosecutor, wrote that the DOJ, led by Attorney General Pam Bondi, “is getting lapped by both Congress and the British authorities on follow-up investigations around the Epstein files,” adding bluntly, “There’s no excuse for either.”

Honig pointed to developments overseas, where British officials have moved quickly on leads drawn from the same Epstein files released by U.S. authorities. “In a matter of weeks,” he wrote, U.K. investigators “have investigated and arrested a former prince [Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor] … and a lord [Peter Mandelson],” carried out searches, and conducted extensive questioning.

By contrast, Honig said, “It’s not even clear the DoJ is doing anything at all.”

He wrote about what he characterized as a dismissive tone from top U.S. officials, highlighting Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s remark that “the American people need to understand that it isn’t a crime to party with Mr. Epstein.”

“The DoJ has dutifully adopted [President Donald] Trump’s recommended approach,” Honig wrote, describing it as “myopia blended with dissembling and a pinch of proactive excuse-making.”

Honig argued Congress has at least attempted to push forward. The House Oversight Committee, he noted, has issued “a series of aggressive subpoenas,” putting figures like billionaire Les Wexner under oath for hours of questioning — even if the effort is “largely for political show.”

Still, he stressed, Congress is “putting powerful people on the spot,” something the DOJ has yet to do, noting the absence of “search warrants, no subpoenas, no interviews with key players, no arrests.”

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

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