UK Ambassador Told Epstein
‘I Think the World of You,’ Emails Reveal
Peter Mandelson, the prominent Labour politician who was named British ambassador to the US this year, expressed steadfast support and offered to discuss Epstein’s now-infamous 2008 case with his contacts.
UPDATE: On Thursday, Peter Mandelson was fired as UK ambassador to the US. The government cited the emails published in this story.
Here is the statement in full:
“The emails show 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. In particular Peter Mandelson’s suggestion that Jeffrey Epstein’s first conviction was wrongful and should be challenged is new information. In light of that, and mindful of the victims of Epstein’s crimes he has been withdrawn as Ambassador with immediate effect.”
The day before Jeffrey Epstein reported to a Florida jail in June 2008 to begin serving time for soliciting sex from a minor, he received an outraged message from a friend anguished at the injustice of it all.
“I think the world of you and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened,” Peter Mandelson wrote, in an email obtained by Bloomberg News. “I can still barely understand it. It just could not happen in Britain.”
At the time, Mandelson was European Commissioner for Trade. Today he is the UK’s ambassador in Washington, the most prestigious posting in Britain’s diplomatic service and the latest in a decades-long career of high-profile positions in government and politics. And he finds himself at the center of a furor over his links to the serial sex abuser, after the publication this week of a 2003 birthday book in which Mandelson penned a 10-page tribute calling Epstein his “best pal.”
Now Bloomberg News has obtained more than 100 previously unreported emails between Epstein and Mandelson from 2005 through 2010, casting new light on the relationship between the two men and showing that it was deeper than previously known.
That connection continued long after Epstein’s behavior made international news, the emails show. From the moment the first allegations against Epstein became public in 2006, Mandelson showed his American friend steadfast support. The longtime politician and diplomat gave Epstein advice, suggesting he fight back using techniques from Sun Tzu’s Art of War.
And he offered to discuss Epstein’s legal plight with one or more of his contacts, although it is unclear whom he spoke with, or about what specifically.
In one cryptic exchange, Epstein referred to an upcoming meeting between his lawyer and somebody he called “mr. big,” and told Mandelson, “I need your guy to remind him one time before the meeting.. then we are done.” Mandelson replied, “I will get a message. He is travelling at moment.” Neither “mr. big” nor “your guy” are named.
Bloomberg sent Mandelson a detailed letter outlining the emails on Monday. Mandelson acknowledged receipt of Bloomberg’s questions but has not responded to them.
In an interview with UK newspaper The Sun on Wednesday morning, he expressed remorse for his relationship with Epstein. “I feel a tremendous sense of regret not only that I met him in the first place,” he said, “but that I continued the association and I took at face value the lies that he fed me and many others.”
In that interview he noted that he’d had “a lot of traffic, correspondence, exchanges” with Epstein and added, “we know they’re going to come out, they’re going to be embarrassing.” After Bloomberg approached Mandelson again seeking comment, the Sun published numerous excerpts from the emails and reported that Mandelson “did not dispute the veracity of the messages.”
In the emails, Epstein told Mandelson that prosecutors had “very bad info,” and that he had passed a polygraph and “of course passed with flying colrs”. The two also discussed more typical matters between friends. They exchanged travel plans and locations where they could meet up. When Mandelson wrote to say he was going through a “terrible situation,” Epstein called him, the emails show. Mandelson arranged to send Epstein a book, and Epstein bought Mandelson a camera.
Most of the messages are short and breezy, but Mandelson’s June 2008 email on the day before Epstein reported to jail stands out. “You have to be incredibly resilient, fight for early release and be philosophical about it as much as you can. The whole thing has been years of torture and now you have to show the world how big a person you are, and how strong,” Mandelson wrote. “Your friends stay with you and love you.”
Epstein’s 13-month stay in prison has since become infamous. It was the result of a “non-prosecution agreement” between his legal team and federal prosecutors, in which a federal sex trafficking investigation involving scores of underage girls was dropped in exchange for a guilty plea to lesser state charges. After that stint in jail, he remained free until his 2019 arrest and death in custody, which was ruled a suicide.
“Are you seeing them off and winning?”
Mandelson, who came to prominence in the mid-to-late 1990s as an architect of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s New Labour project, has held several high-profile political roles over the decades. News accounts in the early 2000s describe how Mandelson helped persuade Queen Elizabeth to appoint Prince Andrew, her second son and the Duke of York, to an influential role as an international trade ambassador.
Reports from the time show the Duke of York and Mandelson at parties in London and New York alongside Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite whose long personal and business relationship with Epstein led to her 2022 conviction on sex-crime charges. It is not known when Mandelson and Epstein first met, or whether Maxwell introduced them.
The first message in the cache between Epstein and Mandelson is from October 2005. Mandelson had been the European Commissioner for Trade for less than a year. Epstein had not yet been charged with any crimes. In public, he was known only as a wealthy but mysterious financier with extensive ties to politicians, celebrities and Wall Street’s elite. The emails in this story are published as they were written, complete with typos and grammatical errors.
Epstein owned a private island in the Caribbean. He replied that he would be going there in December and added, “I can pay for your tickets if needed.” Years later, the Daily Mail uncovered a picture showing Mandelson with Epstein on another Caribbean island on Dec. 27, 2005. The emails don’t say who paid for Mandelson’s tickets.
In May 2006, police in Palm Beach, Florida, filed a probable cause affidavit saying Epstein should be charged with four counts of unlawful sexual activity with a minor and one count of lewd and lascivious molestation. One of the alleged victims was 14 years old.
Later that month, Mandelson messaged him: “What’s cooking ? I am in London (public holiday) heading back to BXL in a few hours. P”
“attempting to set up another prosecutor meeting,” Epstein replied.
“I am following you closely and here whenever you need,” Mandelson responded.
The next month, Mandelson was back in touch. “Worried that I haven’t heard from you. Are you seeing them off and winning?” he wrote. Epstein replied with a missive declaring that the prosecutors had erred badly.
A month later, on the same day Epstein was arrested and charged, Mandelson was pressing for updates. “keep me posted. Where are you next week?”
“All bad new york post,, says solicited a prostitute,” Epstein replied. The New York Post published a story about Epstein on Aug. 14, 2006 under the headline, “MYSTERY MOGUL’S TEEN-SEX SECRET BARED IN PROBE.”
While Mandelson kept an eye on Epstein, he also confided in him. In an October 2006 email, he asked Epstein to phone him. Mandelson explained that he was facing a “terrible situation” in his personal life.
Later that day Mandelson emailed to thank him for calling. “Please stick with me through this.x,” Mandelson wrote.
“of course,” Epstein replied.
Meeting with “mr. big”
On a referral from police in Palm Beach, the FBI had opened a sex-trafficking investigation into Epstein, which led to the discovery of more than three dozen potential underage victims. In late 2007, Epstein and his attorneys agreed to their non-prosecution agreement with the US Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida.
But Epstein still faced two Florida state charges, and in his messages with Mandelson he showed a desire to fight those too. As the new year began, Mandelson told Epstein of a discussion he had with an unnamed contact who he felt could help extract his friend from his legal difficulties.
In a Jan. 7, 2008 message, Mandelson wrote that his contact had told him, “I will really go for it on your friend now that his case is a bit more realistically salvageable.”
A week later, Epstein told Mandelson that an unidentified person referred to only as “mr. big” would meet with Jay Lefkowitz, who was one of his defense lawyers. “Lefky is the way mr big refers to him,” Epstein wrote.
Lefkowitz had been a senior adviser to former US President George W. Bush’s administration. In January 2008, he was serving as official US envoy for human rights in North Korea — while simultaneously working as a partner at law firm Kirkland & Ellis. He would not be widely reported as one of Epstein’s main attorneys in the Florida case until 2015.
While there’s no further discussion in the emails about whether that meeting took place, Lefkowitz was in Washington on the next Thursday, Jan. 17, 2008. There, he delivered a speech about North Korea at the American Enterprise Institute. Lefkowitz’s full schedule in Washington that day isn't public, but years later, he confirmed that he met with Bush at the White House “that night,” where the two discussed the speech. Lefkowitz did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
A spokesman for former President Bush said he never discussed Epstein while in office. “President Bush in no way knew this man and is in no way involved with this story,” said the spokesman in an emailed response.
It is unclear who Epstein was referring to as “your guy.” There is no further discussion of that meeting in the emails obtained by Bloomberg, but Mandelson continued to talk about Epstein’s legal situation.
Another cryptic email came that June. As British Prime Minister Gordon Brown prepared to meet Bush in Washington, Epstein messaged Mandelson: “your boy is meeting tomoorw with B. IF he gets a chance he could remind josh bolton.” Josh Bolten was Bush’s chief of staff at the time.
It is unclear from the email what precisely Epstein wanted Brown to “remind” Bolten of. In any case, Mandelson replied to say that wouldn’t be possible: “In fact he met him this morning. It was one on one I think, so no josh.” Through a spokeswoman, Bolten said he had “no recollection of anyone ever raising Jeffrey Epstein’s case with him, nor, to his knowledge, with President Bush.”
Later that month, Epstein pleaded guilty and began his prison sentence. That’s when Mandelson emailed him to say “I think the world of you.”
While incarcerated, Epstein still had access to a computer. He came up with another idea for how Mandelson could help him. “did you come across Governor crist,,from florida,, he is europe on a trade mission,” Epstein wrote. “He would be instrumental in a pardon, as i pled guilty to a STATE offence. how are you,, tell me more.”
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist spent four days in the UK as part of that trade mission. There was no response from Mandelson in the email cache. Reached by phone, Crist told Bloomberg he had no recollection of hearing from Mandelson about Epstein, adding that he did not even know who Mandelson was. “No sir,” Crist said when asked if he had ever discussed the granting of a pardon to Epstein.
JPMorgan Connection
That was the last email the men would exchange in the cache obtained by Bloomberg, but a handful of emails released in a separate lawsuit in 2023 show that Epstein and Mandelson remained in touch until at least 2012.
In June 2009, Epstein wrote to a senior executive at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Jes Staley, with whom he maintained frequent communication, and boasted of Mandelson’s influence. Mandelson had recently been named to the House of Lords, and as the UK’s business secretary he held a Cabinet-level role that put him back at the heart of power.
“for all intends and purposes peter mandelson is now deputy prime minister,” Epstein wrote. The email was publicly disclosed as part of a lawsuit brought by prosecutors in the US Virgin Islands who accused JPMorgan of facilitating Epstein’s sex-trafficking network. JPMorgan ultimately settled the case for $75 million.
In January 2010, Staley asked Epstein to help him secure meetings with Mandelson and Alistair Darling, then Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer, at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Two days after making the request, Staley updated Epstein on his progress from Davos, writing: “Peter last night. Darling in 20 minutes. Will talk again with Peter this AM.”
That May, Mandelson’s Labour Party lost the UK general election, ending his time in office. Epstein emailed Staley to tell him that “Peties quitting.” Weeks after leaving office, Mandelson forwarded Epstein details of a Chinese conference later that year. “Isn’t it something that JPM should be represented at if they want to spread their wings in China,” Mandelson wrote. Epstein forwarded the message on to Staley, saying he agreed.
A few months later, Staley forwarded Epstein an email he had received from Mandelson discussing opportunities in the Republic of the Congo for the bank. He also sent JPMorgan information on Russia’s privatization program, leading Staley to write to a Moscow-based colleague: “When Lord Mandelson can help, please let me know.” Epstein suggested to Staley that JPMorgan should work with Mandelson in some capacity for its British investment banking unit, JPMorgan Cazenove, writing: “would it make sense to have peter have a relationship with cazanov.”
A spokeswoman for JPMorgan said in an emailed statement, “In hindsight, it’s clear there were many things between Staley and Epstein that were not disclosed to us.” Representatives for Staley did not respond to requests for comment.
In late 2010, Mandelson co-founded a consultancy business, Global Counsel. Over the next 14 years, the firm developed a blue-chip client base advising some of the world’s largest companies on the regulatory and political environment. It is not clear how much longer he stayed in touch with Epstein. Details from Epstein’s calendar show that Mandelson was scheduled to dine at Epstein’s New York townhouse as late as 2013.
With Labour back in power after a long hiatus, Mandelson returned to government this February after Prime Minister Keir Starmer appointed him ambassador to Washington. Mandelson is scheduled to attend a state dinner at Windsor Castle next week where King Charles will play host to President Donald Trump.
Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein re-entered the news this week, when a congressional committee in the US released documents about the financier, including a letter Mandelson wrote to him in 2003. “Once upon a time, an intelligent, sharp-witted man they call 'mysterious' parachuted into my life,” it says. Next to a picture of Mandelson in a bathrobe chatting with Epstein, it adds, “wherever he is in the world, he remains my best pal!”
On Wednesday, lawmakers in Westminster peppered Starmer with questions about Mandelson in light of the 2003 letter. “The ambassador has repeatedly expressed his deep regret for his association with him,” Starmer said. “He is right to do so. I have confidence in him, and he is playing an important role in the UK-US relationship.” —With Alex Wickham
(Updates first paragraph to reflect full government statement. A previous version of this story was corrected to reflect that Peter Mandelson was fired from his position.)
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