Police investigate former UK ambassador to US Peter Mandelson as Epstein files suggest he shared state secrets

London — Police in the United Kingdom have launched an investigation into former British ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, after the U.S. Department of Justice. emails released last week indicating He may have shared confidential UK government documents with the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The documents refer to years during which Mandelson served as a senior British government official nearly two decades ago.

“Following the release of millions of court documents relating to Jeffrey Epstein by the US Department of Justice, the Met has received a number of reports of alleged misconduct in public office, including a referral from the UK government,” Metropolitan Police Commander Ella Marriott said in a statement on Tuesday. “I can confirm that the Metropolitan Police have launched an investigation into a 72-year-old man, a former Government Minister, for misconduct in public office offences.”

Emails posted last Friday. They appear to show that while Mandelson was in government as UK Business Secretary in 2009 and 2010, he shared confidential and market-sensitive information with Epstein.

It was a period when the governments of the United Kingdom, the United States and Europe were still struggling to contain the global financial crisis, and in a 2009 email published on Friday, Mandelson confirmed rumors of a €500 billion eurozone bailout and told Epstein that the announcement would come that same night.

In another exchange from 2010, Mandelson sent an internal government communication to Epstein, with the message: “Interesting note that reached the Prime Minister.”

The memo in question appeared to be a note from an adviser to then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, detailing the UK’s difficult economy with a policy recommendation to sell government-held assets to raise revenue.

Other documents released by the Justice Department on Friday appear to show that Epstein made payments of $75,000 to Mandelson in three separate $25,000 transactions in 2003 and 2004. Mandelson was a private citizen at the time.

The documents released Friday also suggest that in 2009, Epstein sent nearly $12,000 to Reinaldo Avila da Silva, Mandelson’s husband, to pay for an osteopathy course.

Investigators are examining whether Mandelson abused his position, and critics are raising questions about possible breaches of national security.

He has put further pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer over his decision to appoint Mandelson last year as Britain’s top diplomat to the United States.

Starmer’s office said Tuesday that it had conducted its own review of the documents released Friday in Washington. In a statement, it said it had concluded that “safeguards were compromised” in relation to confidential information inappropriately shared and, “in light of this information, the Cabinet Office has referred this material to the police.”

Starmer has said that Mandelson’s ties to Epstein were scrutinized as part of his appointment as US ambassador, but that Mandelson had lied about the extent of his relationship with the US financier.

“Mandelson betrayed our country, our parliament and my party,” Starmer said in parliament on Wednesday.

News themezone has asked Mandelson for comment on the allegations. In an interview with the BBC last month, he denied any knowledge of or complicity in Epstein’s sex crimes.

In a letter in which Mandelson formally resigned from the Labor Party earlier this week, he also denied receiving payments from Epstein, saying: “Allegations which I believe to be false that he made financial payments to me 20 years ago, and of which I have no record or recollection, need to be investigated by me.”

In an interview published by the Times of London this week, Mandelson said any payments made to his partner had no bearing on his position as a government minister.

“The idea that giving Reinaldo an osteopath scholarship is going to influence my or anyone else’s opinion on banking policy is ridiculous,” he said.

During his decades-long career as a Labor Party politician, he earned the nickname “the Prince of Darkness”, for the record he built as a ruthless and media-savvy problem-solver.

Many political experts believe it was that reputation as a well-connected political maneuverer that earned him the coveted ambassadorship shortly after Trump began his second term.

star fired him from that position in September, after Epstein-related documents released by the U.S. House of Representatives showed that Mandelson had maintained a close relationship with Epstein years after the disgraced financier’s 2008 conviction on charges of soliciting prostitution and procuring a child for prostitution.