Peter Mandelson

Peter Mandelson, Baron Mandelson, is a British Labour politician who served as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1999-2001), Secretary of State for Business (2008-2010), European Commissioner for Trade (2004-2008), and as the UK's Ambassador to the United States (2024-2026). He was chairman of Global Counsel, a strategic advisory firm, from 2010. The released DOJ documents reveal an extensive and close personal relationship with Jeffrey Epstein that continued well after Epstein's 2008 sex trafficking conviction.

Hundreds of emails between the two span from at least 2009 through 2012, with frequent late-night exchanges, references to shared social events, and financial dealings. In one email from August 2010, Mandelson wrote about "arranging your new Beirut business and home" for Epstein. In September 2010, Epstein wrote to Mandelson: "after dancing with everyone at the party, hopefully you will take someone home." A particularly significant email chain from May 29-30, 2012 documents Epstein telling his assistant Lesley Groff: "peter said he was only told about meeting the girls at 745 and not jes at 645" (EFTA01881338, EFTA01881854).

Groff replied that during a conversation with "Peter yesterday morning, Peter told me he knew you were to see Jes last night and it would be another fun night." Mandelson appears in Epstein's black book with 5 phone numbers and is listed in flight logs. His name appears in over 6,900 documents in the released case files. In February 2026, Bloomberg reported that documents show Mandelson and aide Benjamin Wegg-Prosser attempted to secure Epstein a Russian visa through Oleg Deripaska in November 2010, the same month Mandelson's firm Global Counsel was launched.

DOJ documents also show that Mandelson forwarded internal UK government financial documents about post-2008 asset sale options directly to Epstein while serving as Business Secretary. Investigators found evidence that Mandelson may have tipped Epstein off that Prime Minister Gordon Brown was preparing to resign in 2010 and that the EU would announce a 500 billion euro bailout to address the Greek debt crisis, giving Epstein potentially market-moving advance information. On September 2025, Prime Minister Keir Starmer fired Mandelson from the US ambassador post after the revelations became public.

On February 23, 2026, the Metropolitan Police arrested Mandelson at a Camden address on suspicion of misconduct in a public office. He was released on bail, initially to the end of May 2026. His lawyers denied the allegations as baseless.

He had resigned from the Labour Party and from the House of Lords in the weeks before the arrest. He does not face sexual misconduct allegations in connection with Epstein.