When Jeffrey Epstein was still incarcerated at night in a Florida jail for soliciting prostitution from a minor, a close friend emailed with a request to stay at Mr. Epstein’s seven-story, neoclassical mansion on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
“Still OK for Fri-Sat chez vous?” wrote Peter Mandelson, then Britain’s Secretary of State for Business, on June 17, 2009.
Hours later, Mr. Epstein emailed Jes Staley, then a senior executive at JPMorgan, suggesting that he might want to set up a meeting with Mr. Mandelson and Jamie Dimon, the bank’s C.E.O.
“Peter will be staying at 71 st over weekend,” wrote Mr. Epstein, who at the time was allowed after his conviction to leave his cell during the day and work from his office. “Do you want to organize either you, or you and jamie, quietly…up to you.”
These emails are among thousands in the latest tranche of the Epstein files that mention Mr. Mandelson, a veteran British political operative whose ruthless tactics and spin led people to dub him the “Prince of Darkness.”
They reveal a deep friendship between the two men that went far beyond what was publicly known while Mr. Mandelson served in a Labour government from 2008 to 2010, then built a lucrative global consulting business, and eventually returned to public office last year when Prime Minister Keir Starmer made him ambassador to the United States.
Mr. Mandelson’s relationship with Mr. Epstein, who died in prison while awaiting trial in 2019 on sex trafficking charges in a new case, is now at the center of a British political scandal that has forced the resignation of two senior government aides and even led to calls for the prime minister to step down. Mr. Starmer’s adversaries and allies have clamored for transparency over exactly what the prime minister knew about Mr. Mandelson’s ties to Mr. Epstein when he appointed him.
The British government says that during the vetting process for the ambassador role in late 2024, Mr. Mandelson lied repeatedly when asked whether he had stayed with Mr. Epstein after his 2008 conviction, or had accepted his gifts or his hospitality. Details contained in the emails suggests that he had done all three. And they indicate that Mr. Mandelson passed along sensitive government information to Mr. Epstein several times — revelations that prompted the British government to refer him to the police last week for possible prosecution.
Mr. Mandelson has said in the past that he did nothing criminal. He did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
Before his death, federal prosecutors accused Mr. Epstein of running a wide-ranging operation trafficking young women and girls for sex with him and his friends. Dozens of women, many of them teenagers at the time, came forward alleging that he lured them to properties where they were sexually abused by Mr. Epstein and by other powerful men.
Mr. Mandelson is not accused of sexual misconduct, and said in a BBC interview last month that he only ever saw “middle-aged housekeepers’ at Epstein’s properties and said that “because I was a gay man in his circle I was kept separate from what he was doing in the sexual side of his life.”
Yet his claims that he barely knew Mr. Epstein, and that he “was at the edge of this man’s life,” are contradicted by their yearslong correspondence, which is filled with corporate plotting, political gossip, crude sexual references, emotional confessionals and juvenile banter.
“Are you sure the backpressure from your lack of sex is not turning your brain into fois gras,” Mr. Epstein wrote to Mr. Mandelson in November 2009, during an exchange about the need to be brutally honest with Gordon Brown, then the British prime minister.
“It’s certainly a serious problem,” Mr. Mandelson replied. “Cure coming to London from S’hai next weekend,” he added, an apparent reference to an upcoming visit he was expecting from someone in Shanghai.
‘Let’s go for it and just be careful.’
Three years after Mr. Mandelson’s 2009 weekend visit to the New York mansion, Mr. Epstein, by then out of jail, reluctantly told his friend that he had to refuse his latest “is my bed free” request to stay at the property.
“If I unintentionally insulted you, I apologize,” Mr. Epstein wrote.
Mr. Mandelson responded three minutes later: “No insult, don’t worry! I still love you.”
In email after email — laced with typos, bad grammar and misspellings — the two men demonstrated their closeness. They connected on birthdays and even spoke on Christmas Day.
Until now, Mr. Mandelson was only known to have stayed once at a property of Mr. Epstein’s following his 2008 conviction.
But an analysis of the Epstein files suggest that Mr. Mandelson continued to stay at his friend’s properties: in New York in 2011 and 2012, and possibly in Paris, where he was photographed wearing only a T-shirt and underwear next to an unidentified woman in a bathrobe. Mr. Epstein emailed the photograph to Ghislaine Maxwell on Nov. 14, 2010 although it is not clear when the photo was taken.
Both Mr. Mandelson and Mr. Epstein’s staff seemed to understand the need for discretion during his visits.
“I want to stay. Let’s go for it, and just be careful,” Mr. Mandelson wrote to Mr. Epstein in May 2012.
When Mr. Epstein’s personal assistant was informed of his visit, she wrote: “I hope the news people don’t find out!”
The pair often wrote like pals bonding over raunchy banter. In one exchange in 2010, as the Labour government was about to collapse following a general election, Mr. Mandelson emailed to say that “we are praying for a hung parliament. alternatively, a well hung young man.”
Sometimes there were tense moments.
In 2012, Mr. Epstein sent an email complaining that the friendship was one-sided. By that time, the files suggest, he had sent Mr. Mandelson tens of thousands of pounds. In one email exchange, Mr. Epstein promised to wire £3,225 to help pay for Mr. Mandelson’s boyfriend to attend osteopathy school.
“After years of being by your side. suppporting your boyfriend when he needed it, unwavering in my guidance, though emotionally rejected, I am disappointed in what appears to be a one way street,” he wrote. “you have yet to offer real assistance, sign of gratitude or appreciation.”
Mr. Mandelson rejected that characterization, and appeared to reference his support for Mr. Epstein after his conviction for solicitation.
“During your trials and tribulations, I never left your side,” Mr. Mandelson replied. “I was always there with advice and moral support, and I never turned away.”
‘Mildly threaten’
Long before Mr. Epstein became a liability, Mr. Mandelson had twice resigned from government posts for scandals of his own making — once, in 1998, for an undeclared home loan and then again in 2001 over a passport application for one of his donors.
He returned to government in October 2008. As a senior member of Mr. Brown’s cabinet, he was given a post in Parliament’s upper chamber and a new title: Lord Mandelson.
“He was removed twice from the govt in disgrace,” Mr. Epstein noted to a friend not long after that. “When they offered him redemption, he grabbed it.”
The emails from that period indicate that Mr. Mandelson used his place at the heart of Downing Street to feed his friend sensitive and potentially valuable information.
In June 2009, Nick Butler, an economic adviser to Mr. Brown, wrote a memo to the prime minister about the British economy, which was still reeling from the financial crisis. He suggested the government consider selling some of its “saleable assets” to bolster the public finances. The email was copied to several government officials. Mr. Mandelson soon forwarded it.
“Interesting note that’s gone to the PM,” he wrote to Mr. Epstein, who responded: “what salable assets?”
Mr. Mandelson replied: “Land, property I guess.”
Later that year, Mr. Mandelson appeared to work with Mr. Epstein in an effort to beat back his own government’s proposal to tax bankers’ bonuses. Mr. Mandelson told Mr. Epstein that he was “on case” trying to amend the proposal.
When Mr. Epstein asked whether Mr. Dimon, the head of JPMorgan, should call Alistair Darling, the British chancellor, to raise the issue, Mr. Mandelson agreed.
“Yes and mildly threaten,” Mr. Mandelson wrote.
The following year, Mr. Mandelson confirmed for Mr. Epstein the timing of a looming bailout by European governments during the eurozone sovereign debt crisis.
“Sd be announced tonight,” Mr. Mandelson wrote on May 9, 2010, a day before it was formally unveiled.
This month, the Metropolitan Police in London announced they were investigating whether Mr. Mandelson committed “misconduct in public office” based on the emails suggesting he may have leaked sensitive and potentially market-moving government information to Mr. Epstein.
‘Follow the money trail’
After Labour lost its majority in 2010, Mr. Mandelson suddenly found himself without a job. Having spent much of his adult life in politics he was eager to make money — fast — and Mr. Epstein was determined to help.
The emails show Mr. Mandelson quickly began discussions with Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan and Kleinwort, an investment firm, among others. Deutsche Bank floated the possibility of a $1 million retainer and an end of the year bonus.
Mr. Mandelson was excited.
“good petey well done petey,” Mr. Epstein wrote. “now – raise your sights”
Mr. Mandelson eventually began drafting plans for a consulting firm that would provide “strategic political, marketing and communications advice.” He sent Mr. Epstein early drafts of his business plan for the firm, which he eventually called Global Counsel, showing he anticipated his clients would include the governments of “South Africa. Qatar. China, in time.”
Mr. Epstein was not impressed.
“I have always suggested that the key is for you to follow the money trail,” he wrote. “I m not sure reading this who pays you, and how much and for how long.”
Mr. Mandelson responded: “Of course I want to follow the money trail (if someone helps put me on it).”
In an email to Mr. Epstein on Christmas Day in 2010, Mr. Mandelson made his ambitions clear.
“My aim is to acquire enough knowledge and networks in time to participate in real deals.”
He added: “I do not want to live by salary alone.”
Mr. Starmer has accused his former ambassador of “deceit” and “betrayal” for hiding the depth of his friendship with Mr. Epstein. In a speech last week, the prime minister said he was “sorry for having believed Mandelson’s lies.”
But Mr. Starmer’s critics and some of his allies say he was too trusting and never should have appointed Mr. Mandelson, given his track record.
The government, bowing to demands from members of Parliament, has agreed to the release of thousands of internal government documents relating to the appointment and vetting of Mr. Mandelson as ambassador.
The documents are due to be released in the coming weeks.
Teresa Mondría Terol contributed reporting.
Michael D. Shear is a senior Times correspondent covering British politics and culture, and diplomacy around the world.
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