Britain’s former ambassador to the United States sent a confidential government memo to his “best pal” Jeffrey Epstein, according to a new tranche of documents related to the late sex offender.
Lord Peter Mandelson was fired from his role as envoy to Washington by U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer in September, and, on Sunday, he resigned from the country’s left-wing Labour Party after the latest Justice Department Epstein dump revealed an embarrassing image of the 72-year-old in his tighty-whities.
“I have been further linked this weekend to the understandable furor surrounding Jeffrey Epstein and I feel regretful and sorry about this,” said Mandelson, who once called Epstein his “best pal.”
But the former diplomat is now facing questions over another interaction with Epstein, who was convicted in 2008 of soliciting a minor for prostitution.
In June 2009, Nick Butler, a special adviser to then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, sent an email outlining ideas to shore up government finances and attract more private-sector investment. It was labeled “Business Issues.”
Rather than prioritizing spending cuts or tax increases, Butler argued that the government should look at selling off “saleable assets” that did not need to remain in public ownership.
The message was circulated to senior officials, including Mandelson, then a powerful senior member of the government. He promptly forwarded the email to Epstein, the newly released Epstein files suggest. “Interesting note that’s gone to the PM,” he said.
“What salable assets?” Epstein enquired. “Land, property I guess,” Mandelson responded.
The Labour government officially announced the plans four months later. The government and Mandelson have been contacted by The Daily Beast for comment.
Friday’s DOJ dump also suggested that Mandelson had received several payments from Epstein in the early 2000s. He claimed to have no recollection of the three $25,000 transactions and questioned whether the documents were authentic, though he didn’t outright deny that payments were made.
In 2009, when he was the U.K. business secretary, he also told Epstein that he was “trying hard to amend” a tax on bank bonuses announced by the government.
He suggested that JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon should “mildly threaten” the U.K.’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, equivalent to the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, over the tax.
That same year, Mandelson’s partner, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, also received thousands of dollars from Epstein, according to materials released by the DOJ. The files show that Avila da Silva also received a payment in 2010.
“I want to take this opportunity to repeat my apology to the women and girls whose voices should have been heard long before now,” Mandelson said in resigning from his party on Sunday.
The scandal has heaped pressure onto the already under-fire Starmer, with opposition leaders demanding a probe into why Mandelson was hired as Washington ambassador in the first place.
“Keir Starmer and his chief of staff [Morgan McSweeney] appointed Mandelson ambassador despite his relationship with Epstein and then refused to act even as the mountain of evidence against him grew,” Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said.
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