British police on Monday arrested Peter Mandelson, a former U.K. ambassador to the USA, in a misconduct probe stemming from his ties with Jeffrey Epstein. It got here days after a friendship with Epstein landed the previous Prince Andrew in police custody.
The arrest occurred as revelations proceed from the trove of greater than 3 million pages of Epstein-related documents released by the U.S. Justice Department.
London’s Metropolitan Police force said “officers have arrested a 72-year-old man on suspicion of misconduct in public office” at an address in north London. He was taken to a police station for questioning.
The person was not named, in line with British police practice, however the suspect within the case previously was identified as the previous diplomat, who’s 72. Mandelson was filmed being led from his London home to a automobile by two plainclothes officers on Monday afternoon.
Under U.K. law, police can hold a suspect at no cost for as much as 24 hours. This could be prolonged to a maximum of 96 hours. Mandelson could possibly be charged, released unconditionally or released while investigations proceed.
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Police are investigating Mandelson over claims he passed sensitive government information to Epstein a decade and a half ago. He doesn’t face allegations of sexual misconduct.
His arrest got here 4 days after Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the previous Prince Andrew, was arrested in a separate case on suspicion of an analogous offence related to his friendship with Epstein. Andrew was released after 11 hours in custody, while the police investigation continues.
Mandelson was fired from his diplomatic post in September after emails were published showing that he maintained a friendship with Epstein after the financier’s 2008 conviction for sex offences involving a minor.
Mandelson 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 Epstein files suggest that Mandelson passed on sensitive — and potentially market-moving — government information to Epstein in 2009, when Mandelson was a member of the then-government. That features 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 also appears to have told Epstein he would lobby other members of the federal government to cut back a tax on bankers’ bonuses.
British police launched a criminal probe earlier this month and searched Mandelson’s two houses in London and western England.
The decision to appoint Mandelson nearly cost Starmer his job as questions swirled around his judgment in someone who has flirted with controversy during a decades-long political profession.
Though he has acknowledged he made a mistake and apologized to victims of Epstein, Starmer’s position stays precarious. His future may rest on the discharge of files connected to Mandelson’s appointment. The federal government has pledged to start releasing those documents in early March, though the timeline could also be complicated by his arrest.
Mandelson has been a serious, if contentious, figure within the centre-left Labour Party for a long time. He’s a talented — critics say ruthless — political operator whose mastery of political intrigue earned him the nickname “Prince of Darkness.”
The grandson of former Labour Cabinet minister Herbert Morrison, he was an architect of the party’s return to power in 1997 as centrist, modernizing “Recent Labour” under Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Mandelson served in senior government posts under Blair between 1997 and 2001, and under Prime Minister Gordon Brown from 2008 to 2010. In between, he was the European Union’s trade commissioner. Brown has been particularly angered by the revelations and has been helping police with their inquiries.
Mandelson twice needed to resign from government throughout the Blair administration over allegations of economic or ethical impropriety, acknowledging mistakes but denying wrongdoing.
He later returned to government and was back on the political front line when Starmer named him ambassador to Washington at the beginning of U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term. Mandelson’s trade expertise and luxury across the ultra-rich were considered major assets. He helped secure a trade deal in May that spared Britain a few of the tariffs Trump has imposed on countries all over the world.
The status of the deal is now up within the air after Trump announced a brand new set of worldwide tariffs within the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision quashing his previous import tax order.
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