The Epstein statute of limitations
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The Epstein statute of limitations is John Kiriakou's explanation for why he expects no American criminal prosecutions to come out of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

On the sex cases, he says, the limitation period is five years, "and so we've missed it." There will be civil suits, but nobody is going to be charged with a crime. He hates it, he says, and adds a pointed suggestion about the delay: "which, you know what, may have been a part of the plan. Why didn't Joe Biden release all this information?" Every administration since Clinton, in his view, has had the chance and covered it up.

The one remaining route

Kiriakou says he put the question to a constitutional attorney, who told him a prosecution could go forward only if the Justice Department could successfully argue that the cover-up of the original crime continued and constituted a conspiracy, so that the charge would be conspiracy to commit the crime rather than the crime itself. "But he said even that is a stretch."

What that costs

His objection is not procedural but civic. What a prosecution would have shown the public of every country involved, he says, is that it does not matter how famous or how important you are, "we're all equal under the law", and that is not going to be the case here.

He contrasts the American position with the British one, where he says the authorities have been more straightforward: the charges brought there concern documents rather than sex, Prince Andrew over passing Epstein a document relating to British business and trade negotiations, and Peter Mandelson rumoured to have handed over something from the Defence Ministry, potentially an Official Secrets Act violation.

See also

- Jeffrey Epstein
- Alexander Acosta and the sweetheart deal
- David Boies
- Prince Andrew
- Les Wexner
