(Feb 3): The UK government has referred communications between former cabinet minister Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein to the police after it found them to contain market-sensitive information.
An initial assessment by the Cabinet Office judged the emails to contain “highly sensitive” material that should have been subject to “strict handling conditions” to prevent it from being passed to anyone outside of government, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesperson Tom Wells told reporters on Tuesday.
“It appears these safeguards were compromised,” he added.
The Metropolitan Police had said on Monday it was assessing reports it had received about alleged misconduct in public office relating to the Epstein files. The government’s decision to refer evidence to the police raises the prospect of a criminal investigation into Mandelson’s behaviour. Mandelson did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
Starmer has asked officials to draft legislation to remove Mandelson’s peerage, Wells said. The prime minister told his Cabinet on Tuesday morning that he would take that course to remove Mandelson as a member of the House of Lords if he doesn’t resign from the upper chamber over the scandal himself. A peer can usually only be removed through an act of parliament.
The prime minister called the apparent leak of sensitive government material to Epstein “disgraceful” and “appalling”, saying Mandelson had “let his country down”.
See also: Starmer vows to fight on as PM after second top aide resigns
Separately, the European Commission will assess whether Mandelson might have breached rules governing the code of conduct for EU commissioners through his contact with Epstein, commission spokesperson Balazs Ujvari said at a daily press briefing in Brussels.
Files released by the US Department of Justice suggest Mandelson emailed Epstein about the European Union’s rescue facility for struggling member states, telling him the deal should “be announced tonight”. The emails are dated May 9, 2010. On May 10, European policymakers announced a €500 billion loan plan, sending the euro on its biggest rally in two years.
The documents also appear to show Mandelson forwarding internal Downing Street emails about tax policy proposals to Epstein while a member of former prime minister Gordon Brown’s cabinet in 2009, appending the comment: “Interesting note that’s gone to the PM.”
See also: Healey says Mandelson had no role in Palantir-UK data deal
The private memo was drafted by a senior adviser in Brown’s office on June 13 that year — the same day Mandelson shared it. The note proposed tax incentives to encourage private-sector investment after the financial crisis, as well as the possibility of making £20 billion of asset sales to reduce government debt.
In another email, Mandelson appeared to tip Epstein off that Brown planned to resign as Labour leader and prime minister hours before he actually did so. “Finally got him to go today...” he wrote in the email on May 10, 2010.
The latest round of Epstein material — totalling about three million pages — was posted on the US Department of Justice website with a request for visitors to confirm they are 18 or over, includes a slew of financial and travel records, along with email correspondence. The department said that release means that almost 3.5 million pages had been produced.
The disclosure of the files relating to the disgraced financier was required by a law passed by Congress last year in response to bipartisan pressure from lawmakers, victims and activists. As was the case in previous tranches, the material contains references to wealthy and powerful people that had associations with Epstein at various points. Inclusion in the documents isn’t an indication of wrongdoing.
A convicted sex offender, Epstein was facing federal charges of trafficking underage girls when he died in jail in 2019. Authorities have ruled it a suicide.
Uploaded by Felyx Teoh
