Jeffrey Epstein files ‘referred to the police’ after Mandelson accused of leaking secrets
The Cabinet Office has contacted the police over allegations that Lord Mandelson forwarded sensitive information to Jeffrey Epstein.
Files released by the US Department of Justice last Friday apparently showed Lord Mandelson passing material to Epstein while serving as a cabinet minister in Gordon Brown’s Labour administration.
Downing Street said the material likely contained ‘sensitive information’ and it’s now been passed on to the police.
It’s understood the police were contacted today.
A Downing Street spokesperson said: ‘An initial review of the documents released in relation to Jeffrey Epstein by the US Department of Justice … found that they contain likely market sensitive information surrounding the 2008 financial crash and official activities thereafter to stabilise the economy.
‘Only people operating in an official capacity had access to this information and (there were) strict handling conditions to ensure it was not available to anyone who could potentially benefit from it financially.
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‘It appears these safeguards were compromised. In light of this information the Cabinet Office has referred this material to the police.’
It comes after Mandelson’s connections to the convicted paedophile and sex offender emerged further over the weekend.
Bank statements from 2003 and 2004 appeared to show Mandelson received payments totalling 75,000 US dollars (£54,735) from the financier. Epstein is also said to have paid for an osteopathy course for his husband.
In an email exchange from 2009, Lord Mandelson, then the business secretary, appeared to tell Epstein he would lobby ministers about a tax on bankers’ bonuses, while he also appeared to send Epstein internal discussions from the top of the UK government in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.
Mandelson has insisted Epstein’s money did not influence his actions in government.
He resigned from the Labour party on Sunday, stating that while he denied the allegations lodged against him and had ‘absolutely no recollection’ of receiving the payments, he ‘does not wish to cause further embarrassment to the Labour Party’ and therefore would leave.
During his Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Sir Keir Starmer said he was ‘appalled’ at the information that appeared over the weekend after the latest tranche of files were released.
‘He said the alleged passing-on of emails of highly sensitive Government business was disgraceful, adding that he was not reassured that the totality of information had yet emerged,’ the spokesperson said.
‘The Prime Minister told cabinet that Peter Mandelson should no longer be a member of the House of Lords or use the title, and said he had asked the Cabinet Secretary to review all available information regarding Mandelson’s contact with Jeffrey Epstein during his time serving as a government minister.
‘He said he’d made it clear the Government would cooperate with the police in any inquiries they carried out, but he said the Government had to press and go further, working at speed in the Lords, including legislatively if necessary.
‘He reiterated that there was a need to move at pace. The Prime Minister said Peter Mandelson had let his country down.’
Starmer has faced calls to strip Mandelson of his peerage after the scandal, something that Number 10 has said it is drafting new laws to do so ‘as quickly as possible’.
In an interview with The Times, which was published last night but was held before the latest allegations came to light, Lord Mandelson admitted to a “lapse in judgment” over Epstein’s funding of an osteopathy course for the peer’s husband Reinaldo Avila da Silva in 2009, at the time the government was dealing with the global financial crisis.
The files contain reference to a £10,000 transfer from Epstein.
‘In retrospect, it was clearly a lapse in our collective judgment for Reinaldo to accept this offer. At the time it was not a consequential decision,’ he said.
Lord Mandelson rejected the suggestion this left him open to bribery claims, with Epstein lobbying him to change banker bonus rules.
He suggested he did not want to fully exit public life, saying that ‘hiding under a rock would be a disproportionate response to a handful of misguided historical emails, which I deeply regret sending’.
He told the newspaper that none of the recently released Epstein files ‘indicate wrongdoing or misdemeanour on my part’.
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