LONDON — British police on Tuesday opened a criminal investigation into politician Peter Mandelson over alleged misconduct in public office related to his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The U.K. government says newly released Epstein files suggest Mandelson – a former Cabinet minister, ambassador and elder statesman of the governing Labour Party – may have shared market-sensitive information with the convicted sex offender a decade and a half ago.
London's Metropolitan Police force said detectives had reviewed reports of misconduct and decided they met the threshold for a full investigation.
Commander Ella Marriott said the force "has now launched an investigation into a 72-year-old man, a former government minister, for misconduct in public office offenses."
Misconduct in public office carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. Opening an investigation does not mean Mandelson will be arrested, charged or convicted.
But his friendship with Epstein has now cost him his political career. Mandelson said Tuesday he was resigning from the House of Lords, Parliament's upper chamber, to which he was appointed for life in 2008.
The Speaker of the Lords, Michael Forsyth, said Mandelson had informed officials he will retire effective Wednesday.
The announcement came as the British government prepared legislation to eject Mandelson from the Lords and remove the noble title, Lord Mandelson, that came with his seat in the chamber. Mandelson will retain the title after he retires unless lawmakers pass legislation to strip it from him — something that has not been done for more than a century.
A trove of more than 3 million pages of Epstein-related documents released by the U.S. Justice Department has brought excruciating revelations about 72-year-old Mandelson, who served in senior government roles under previous Labour governments and was U.K. ambassador to Washington until Prime Minister Keir Starmer fired him in September over his ties to Epstein.
The newly released files contain emails from Mandelson to Epstein passing on nuggets of political information, some of which critics say may have broken the law.
Starmer told his Cabinet on Tuesday that he was "appalled" by the revelations in newly released Epstein files, and was concerned there are more details still to emerge.
Starmer spokesman Tom Wells said that the government had sent police its assessment that the Mandelson-Epstein documents contained "likely market-sensitive information" about the 2008 global financial crisis and its aftermath that shouldn't have been shared outside of government.
Among the revelations in the files:
— In 2003-2004, bank documents suggest Epstein sent three payments totaling $75,000 to accounts linked to Mandelson or his partner Reinaldo Avila da Silva. Mandelson has said that he doesn't remember receiving the money and will investigate whether the documents are authentic. But he resigned from the governing Labour Party on Sunday, saying he didn't want to cause the party "further embarrassment."
In 2008, Epstein avoided federal prosecution by pleading guilty to state charges in Florida of soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution. He was sentenced to 18 months in jail.
Emails and text messages show that Mandelson's friendship with Epstein continued after the financier's sentence.
— In 2009, Epstein sent da Silva 10,000 pounds (about $13,650 at today's rates) to pay for an osteopathy course. Mandelson told The Times of London that "in retrospect, it was clearly a lapse in our collective judgment for Reinaldo to accept this offer."
— Also in 2009, Mandelson, then business secretary in the U.K. government, appears to have told Epstein he would lobby other members of the government to reduce a tax on bankers' bonuses.
— The same year, Mandelson sent Epstein an internal government report discussing ways the U.K. could raise money after the 2008 global financial crisis, including by selling off government assets. Mandelson wrote: "Interesting note that's gone to the PM."
— In May 2010, Mandelson messaged Epstein that "sources tell me 500 b euro bailout" is almost complete. The message was dated hours before day European governments announced a 500 billion euro deal to shore up the single currency.
Epstein died by suicide in a jail cell in 2019, while awaiting trial on U.S. federal charges accusing him of sexually abusing dozens of girls.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said that Mandelson's friendship with Epstein was "a betrayal on so many levels."
"It is a betrayal of the victims of Jeffrey Epstein that he continued that association and that friendship for so long after his conviction," Streeting told the BBC. "It is a betrayal of not just one but two prime ministers" — Gordon Brown, the U.K. leader between 2007 and 2010, and Starmer.
An email requesting comment on the documents was sent to Mandelson through the House of Lords.
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