British PM Starmer apologizes for appointing Mandelson, but says official lied about Epstein relationship
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The British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, apologized to Jeffrey Epstein’s victims on Thursday and said he was sorry for appointing Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States, who was a close friend of the late sex offender.
Starmer said he was unaware of the strength of the relationship between Mandelson and Epstein when he nominated him to run in December 2024, accusing the long-time Labor politician of lying about his relationship.
“It became public knowledge that Mandelson knew Epstein, but none of us knew the depth and darkness of that relationship,” he told reporters.
Starmer has said he would release the vetting advice he was given when he selected Mandelson for the Washington post, but on Thursday he said he needed to comply with police requests not to release anything that could interfere with the investigation. There are allegations that Mandelson, 72, shared sensitive government information with Epstein, who died in prison in 2019, shortly after the United States was indicted.
Starmer, in response to a reporter’s questions, said he did not see his mistake as a reason to stand as prime minister.
“I understand the frustration and the frustration,” he said. “I’m angry.”
British police have launched an investigation into Peter Mandelson, the former British ambassador to the US, for alleged misconduct in public office following allegations that he leaked sensitive information to Jeffrey Epstein. Mandelson also retired from the upper house of Parliament, the House of Lords, because of the Epstein scandal.
‘Who advised the prime minister?’
Mandelson was among a large number of people whose names appeared in a major release of files since December by the US Department of Justice related to the Epstein investigation. Current President Donald Trump, former president Bill Clinton and Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and Space X, appear in the files, either in correspondence with Epstein or in photographs.
The revelations in the files do not contain any criminal wrongdoing, but they have left many with uncomfortable questions about their relationship with Epstein. Mandelson has denied knowledge of Epstein’s lifestyle – where dozens of women have come forward with allegations of sexual harassment and trafficking – but his relationship with Epstein continued past the American’s 2008 conviction in Florida on charges of soliciting prostitution and soliciting prostitution with a child under 18.
In Epstein’s latest release, the emails suggest that in 2009, Mandelson sent Epstein a memo to Brown about UK trade and tax reforms, and in 2010 he gave the US advance notice of a European Union decision.
Mandelson this week resigned from his team and from the House of Lords.
Labor MP Clive Efford, speaking in Parliament on Monday, said, “The key question here is who advised the prime minister?”
Starmer appointed Mandelson to the post in December 2024. Mandelson was first elected as an MP in 1992 and served in various positions in the Labor governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, eventually gaining a seat in the House of Lords.
Mandelson was fired as ambassador last September. In that instance, emails published in British media show that Mandelson had advised Epstein to fight for an early release from child solicitation charges. The department said at the time that the revelation of Mandelson’s suggestion that Epstein’s first conviction was wrong and should be overturned was “new information.”
In addition, Bloomberg News reported at the same time that a letter purportedly from Mandelson describing Epstein as “my best friend” was included in a so-called birthday letter edited by Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s friend and colleague who is now serving a prison sentence.
A recent batch of Epstein files includes many emails with Sarah Ferguson, the former duchess of York. The documents do not include evidence of anything illegal, but they do show his long relationship with a convicted sex offender.
Mandelson said last year that he felt “great compassion for those people, those women who suffered because of his behavior and his illegal criminal activities.”
“I feel a great sense of remorse not only that I met him in the first place, but that I continued with the organization and saw the lies that he fed me and so many others,” she explained, describing Epstein as “a criminal liar who lies.”
Those statements seemed to satisfy Starmer, who later in Parliament supported him.
Asked by a British reporter about Mandelson’s resignation, Trump on Tuesday said it was “very bad,” before launching into a free-flowing response in which he sought to downplay his relationship with Epstein, blaming Democrats for what he described as undermining the success of his administration.
