U.K. dismisses ambassador to U.S. over links to Jeffrey Epstein

LONDON - British Prime Minister Keir Starmer fired the U.K. ambassador to the United States on Thursday, after officials said “additional information” came to light about his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The British Embassy in Washington said emails written by Peter Mandelson showed “that the depth and extent of Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is materially different from that known at the time of his appointment.”

The statement followed reports in the British press this week that Mandelson had expressed his support for the financier in email correspondence from 2008, shortly before Epstein was jailed on charges of soliciting prostitution. Mandelson has since expressed his regret for any support.

“In particular Peter Mandelson’s suggestion that Jeffrey Epstein’s first conviction was wrongful and should be challenged is new information,” the British statement read. “In light of that, and mindful of the victims of Epstein’s crimes he has been withdrawn as Ambassador with immediate effect.”

Bloomberg and the Sun reported that they obtained email messages sent by Mandelson to Epstein, including a June 2008 email in which he wrote: “I think the world of you and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened. … I can still barely understand it. It just could not happen in Britain.”

Mandelson has not denied the veracity of the emails. On Wednesday, Mandelson, told the BBC: “I relied on assurances of his innocence that turned out later to be horrendously false. … His lawyers claimed that it was a shake down of him, a criminal conspiracy. I foolishly relied on their word which I regret to this day.”

The former ambassador did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Epstein’s 2008 prosecution in a Florida state court followed a lenient agreement with federal prosecutors that spared him from far more serious federal charges of molesting girls.

In 2019, after he was arrested again, Epstein was found dead in an apparent suicide in his Manhattan jail cell while facing federal charges of sex trafficking and abusing girls.

The decision to withdraw Mandelson from the post marked a sharp pivot for Starmer, who on Wednesday had spoken of his “confidence” in him. “Let me start by saying the victims of Epstein are at the forefront of our minds. He was a despicable criminal who committed the most heinous crimes and destroyed the lives of so many women and girls,” Starmer told British lawmakers.

The dismissal comes as Starmer is under political pressure and faces unfavorable polls. Last week, he was forced to reshuffle the top positions in his cabinet after his deputy, Angela Rayner, resigned her role after acknowledging she paid the wrong amount of tax on a property purchase.

The reported email between Mandelson and Epstein was the latest link to emerge between the two in recent years. In February, when asked in an interview with the Financial Times about his relationship with Epstein, Mandelson said that he regretted ever meeting him, before using an expletive and accusing the outlet of having an “obsession” with the topic.

This week, a handwritten message from Mandelson was among the notes included in a redacted version of a “birthday book” allegedly gifted to Epstein on his 50th birthday, which was released by the House Oversight Committee. In the 10-page note, which Mandelson said he regretted Wednesday, he described Epstein as his “best pal.”

Mandelson has been a fixture of British political life since the 1980s, when he was part of the team that masterminded the Labour Party’s centrist reinvention and paved the way for the landslide 1997 election victory of Prime Minister Tony Blair. Mandelson served as a lawmaker for the party and then in high-profile government positions under Blair and his successor, Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Nicknamed the “prince of darkness” by the British press for his political cunning, Mandelson is no stranger to scandal. He resigned twice from government: in 1998 for failing to disclose a loan and in 2001, amid allegations of misconduct over efforts to secure a British passport for a wealthy Indian businessman. In 2004, he became the European Union’s trade commissioner.