By MJ Lee, CNN
(CNN) — As King Charles III and Queen Camilla were being greeted by the US president and first lady with pomp and circumstance designed for royalty at the White House on Tuesday morning, a group of individuals who had been denied an in-person meeting with the king and queen took their chance to be heard a couple of miles down Pennsylvania Avenue.
The group on Capitol Hill included survivors of Jeffrey Epstein, their family members and advocates, who also gathered over the weekend for a memorial for Virginia Giuffre. The late Epstein victim had accused Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the king’s brother, of sexual assault and died by suicide one year ago. The former prince has denied all accusations against him and insisted he never witnessed or suspected any of the behavior of which the late Epstein is accused.
“Today, survivors are here, sitting with members of Congress, still fighting to be heard, still pushing for real accountability, while many of the powerful figures connected to these systems remain just out of reach, unable to acknowledge survivors face to face,” Sky Roberts, Giuffre’s brother, said Tuesday.
“You would expect this to be a moment for the king to give a message to the world that he stands with survivors. We still can’t get that from our own president of the US, who continues to say ‘hoax,’ ‘victims or whatever.’”
Roberts’ brief remarks calling out not just the monarchy but also President Donald Trump (who has not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing related to Epstein), was a stark reminder of how much the scandal continues to rock the highest echelons of society, government and celebrity in both countries. And some Epstein survivors and US lawmakers want the convicted sex offender to be part of the story of the royal visit, even as the king and queen have a different agenda planned.
Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, who co-sponsored the law that forced the Justice Department to release millions of Epstein files in its possession, had attempted to seize on the royal visit by writing a letter to the king last month requesting that he offer an in-person meeting with Epstein survivors.
But CNN reported that the king and queen do not plan to accept that request during their four-day visit marking the 250th anniversary of US independence, with Buckingham Palace conscious that such a meeting could affect the British legal probe into Mountbatten-Windsor. That decision is in keeping with the king and queen’s broader strategy of avoiding public statements related to Epstein — the late pedophile who has brought so much scandal, shame and pain to the royal family.
As a symbolic head of the British judiciary, the king could be accused of prejudicing the criminal investigation into his brother if he speaks to the Epstein scandal directly.
(When the former Prince Andrew was arrested on suspicion of miscon