Nick Bryant's book, The Franklin Scandal, has a chapter on the Franklin scandal's connections to Washington DC. Larry King, who ran the Franklin child sex ring in Omaha, was an associate of Craig Spence, a GOP lobbyist and CIA asset living in Washington DC. King would often fly kids from Omaha to Spence's house in DC, where Spence would throw parties for elite politicians/businessmen and provide them with children for sex. The house was wired with video recording equipment, so Spence could blackmail guests who had sex with children. Essentially, Spence was compromising DC elites on behalf of the CIA. One of Bryant's sources was Henry Vinson, who ran a male escort service (only employing men 18 and over) that Spence also used a lot for his parties.

One of Vinson's encounters with Spence went as follows:

In February 1989, Vinson claims, Spence wanted him to participate in a creative financing scheme involving government monies that Vinson felt was a tad too shady—he balked at Spence’s idea. This time, however, Spence didn’t send Tony over to Vinson’s house: He summoned Vinson to his condominium on Massachusetts Avenue—he had sold his Kalorama home the previous year. An uneasy Vinson showed up at Spence’s condo to find only Spence and an extremely high-ranking official in the Department of Justice—Spence had previously disclosed to Vinson that he provided this official with adolescent boys.

Who is this "extremely high-ranking official in the Department of Justice" that Spence provided adolescent boys to? Earlier, in his very first time speaking with Vinson, Bryant heard this:

[Vinson] then mentioned a former high-ranking official in the Department of Justice, whom he described as a “pervert”—he said that Spence and King provided him with “little boys.” I was shocked by the name, but Vinson made such a preemptive, impromptu mention of the individual that it rang with authenticity.

If Bryant was shocked at the name, it must have been someone well-known at the DOJ. Just based on that, and the fact that it was an "extremely high-ranking official", it seems logical that it would be the attorney general at the time. This was in 1989, so it would be Bush's attorney general, Dick Thornburgh. But we don't have to guess. Vinson also tells the story in his own book, and he says that the official who Spence provided adolescent boys to was a Bush cabinet member. Since we know they're a high-ranking DOJ official and in Bush's cabinet, that has to be the attorney general: Dick Thornburgh.

(Side note: This article provides corroboration that Thornburgh and Spence were connected. Associates of Spence organized Thornburgh's 1980 visit to China.)

Right at this same time, the Franklin scandal was being covered up in Omaha by the FBI. The FBI agents were manipulating evidence, intimidating witnesses into recanting, and orchestrating the prosecution of child victims who wouldn't take back their abuse. It's reasonable to believe that the FBI did this at the direction of higher-ups at the DOJ, and given the confirmation that the attorney general was a pedophile compromised by Craig Spence, it's reasonable to assume Thornburgh himself directed the cover-up.

Thornburgh later shows up as an important figure behind the Paterno report, where he criticizes the findings that Penn State officials covered up Jerry Sandusky's child abuse. So that makes two child sex abuse cases that Thornburgh helped cover up: Franklin and Penn State.