That was probably the best angle to start an in-depth investigation into his dealings with Epstein. Evidence that comes to light during that investigation can still be used for additional charges.

Because even in the Epstein files most people aren't saying "ay Jeff, cheers for the fifteen year-old lasses we all shagged, see you next time," but they are saying "here are the minutes of the cabinet meeting/this is what the prime minister thinks about regulating your company/this is the most he's willing to give you a tax break for" in emails because that stuff had to be communicated somehow.

We can all see that Andrew probably committed some sex crimes. But being a suspicious creepy fucker, being accused, and having a photo of you crouching over a girl would not be enough evidence to get you or me charged with a crime either. The counterweight to "nobody is above the law" is "nobody shall be convicted except on the evidence."

CPS generally charges what they can reasonably prove.

*and since he's high profile I expect (hope) they aren't going to fuck it up. get him for something like this, maybe it opens the doors to further charges. Anyway, living in hope.

Across the pond, whenever they'd get a big Mafia don, usually it wasn't because of all the bodies in the river wearing concrete shoes. Usually, it was due to unpaid taxes or some white-collar bullshit. I guess they take what they can get?

They probably have to start small, it's unprecedented territory, and they'd want the proper charges to stick. I expect this also opens up the door to evidence gathering for the bigger charges.

Unfortunately, I fear most of the fallout from this will be that we “know” what some people did, but few will actually be held legally responsible. There’s the bar of proof that satisfies the public (the “sniff test?”), and what’s required for a conviction in court. In the end, any punishment is better than none. One up side could be that, because of what the public “knows” happened, those that are punished will hopefully be unlikely to see any lenience in sentencing. Not hopeful after seeing Maxwell’s treatment, but early days.

We can hope Mandelson is next, he shared information with Epstein too if I recall.

They never go down for their worst crimes. Usually they are guilty of horrible things, killing people with greed and knowing lies, but get taken down with sex scandals. So when it's an actual sex scandal I'm not surprised it's some other thing.

I think because other connected people don't want to be implicated, so they make sure the person is convicted on something unrelated and use their influence to keep the charges off the larger issue perhaps. Never more true than with this case, they are all implicated. Who is they? Every swell in the US and UK apparently. Just presume anyone in the US that went to the ivy league and was in a private club hung out with epstein. (Private clubs started after civil rights triumphed, when they had to start taking in deserving poor and minorities, they started the clubs to differentiate between the aristocracy that almost exclusively runs our business and government, and the dirty charity cases.)

There has been a significant development in that case, so that’s what they’re investigating.