In the week that Surrey police announced a new investigation was underway following information released in the Epstein files, campaigners in the US are questioning the delay across the pond and what could make it change.
Surrey Police Take Action
Surrey Police announced that it was investigating two allegations of historic child sexual abuse following information released in the Epstein files – one relating to locations in Surrey and Berkshire in the mid-1990s to 2000, and another concerning west Surrey in the mid-to-late 1980s. On Friday, police urged a woman who claims to have been sent to the UK by Jeffrey Epstein to have sex with the then-Prince Andrew to come forward and speak to investigators. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office, but it is understood that allegations of sexual misconduct are part of the investigation.
Officers have made an appeal to the woman and said their “door is open” after it was claimed that she had been brought to the UK for a sexual encounter with the then-prince at his residence at the time, Royal Lodge, in 2010. Police are said to have contacted the woman’s lawyers, as well as the US Department of Justice, to obtain original documents released as part of the Epstein files, as part of their wider investigation.
“In terms of Epstein victims and survivors, we hope that anyone with relevant information will come forward, and I really want to stress that our door is open,” said Oliver Wright, the assistant chief constable for crime and criminal justice at Thames Valley Police.
US Inaction Contrasts Sharply
While the UK sees fallout from the Epstein files, in the US no arrests have been made following the release of the latest shocking Epstein files, nor is anyone under active investigation. Investigators may be digging up Epstein’s Zorro ranch, but those who may know where the “bodies are buried” metaphorically could literally be getting away with serious crime.
Epstein survivor Jess Michaels, who called the FBI tip line in September 2019, said she told them about what happened to her in July 1991 and about the woman that brought her to Jeffrey. Despite her efforts, it was a year and a half until an FBI agent even took her statement. That agent “sat on the phone with me for over an hour … said that somebody should have followed up with me. And then I never heard from that FBI agent again,” she said.
Mary Corcoran, co-founder and executive director of Save America Movement, told The Independent that the filibuster – a 24-hour reading of excerpts from the Epstein files – was a direct response to a shadow hearing by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee in Florida. That hearing, in mid-May, took place a few miles from Epstein’s former mansion and was designed to hear direct testimony from Epstein survivors as the Republican majority refused to hold official proceedings.
“We were all watching and I flipped over to CNN and The New York Times, and other mainstream media, and no one was streaming it,” Corcoran said. “I thought, oh my God, every single word that these women are saying, every single thing that their lawyers are saying, should be required viewing.”
The filibuster, with close to 15 survivors participating, was, Corcoran said, “meant to stop time”. It was up to individual speakers to decide what portion they wanted to read from the Epstein files, or if they just wanted to give their testimony.
Call for Full Transparency
Between December 2025 and March 2026, the US Department of Justice released nearly 3.5 million pages in compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed into law by President Trump. However, that amounts to less than half of the actual files in existence. The official reason for withholding the remaining records is that they fall under strict legal exemptions, including victim privacy, active investigations, and explicit material.
To Corcoran, this is beyond insulting. “We are aligned with the victims calling for the full, un-redacted files, with the exception of victims’ names, to be released,” she says. “We want lawful transparency to occur. … [We should be] able to look at this evidence and pursue justice and accountability for these 1,400 known victims.”
Federal prosecutors in New York were investigating Epstein’s co-conspirators, but in January 2025, after Trump was sworn into office, they were ordered to transfer the case files to the Department of Justice in Washington, DC. Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin said that since then, “the investigation into co-conspirators has inexplicably ceased”.
Corcoran says the common thread in all of this is powerful men. “I want to make something very, very clear – while there are political outcomes associated with what we’re doing in terms of helping Americans understand the facts, the reason we did this is not for the midterm elections. The reason we did this was to force eyeballs and attention on this issue to ensure that we can put enough public pressure … to ensure that these women get accountability and justice for what they have been through. That said, the fact that Donald Trump appears 38,000 times in the Epstein files is an important thing for people to understand.” Many politicians, celebrities and other high-profile individuals appear in the Epstein files for innocuous reasons and featuring in the Epstein files does not indicate wrongdoing. Trump has always denied any wrongdoing relating to Epstein and says the release of the files has exonerated him.
Survivors Speak Out
Back in The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room, survivors of Epstein’s abuse line up to speak at the podium. Lisa Phillips reads an excerpt and has a message for others like her: “Do not be afraid to come forward,” she says. “You are not alone anymore. We now have support. We now have strength. And together our voices are far more powerful than the people who tried to silence us.”
Virginia Giuffre, who spent years being dismissed before her testimony helped convict Ghislaine Maxwell and ultimately forced Mountbatten-Windsor from royal life, took her own life in April 2025 at the age of 41, before she could see the full weight of what she had set in motion. Her brother’s fury at the DOJ’s latest release, which exposed survivors’ names while shielding alleged perpetrators, is a reminder that her fight has been inherited, not buried.
FBI internal communications suggest there could be well over a million documents still unreleased, data seized from Epstein's devices. The bipartisan authors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act have also formally demanded to see the unredacted files to check the government is even obeying its own law. As Surrey Police this week opened a fresh criminal investigation based on disclosures that have been public for months, the question for Americans becomes harder to ignore: if this evidence is enough to prompt arrests across the Atlantic, what exactly is Washington waiting for.
