In short for you Sucky, I've decided this person should not be representing our country:
June 21 2023
The extent of Jeffrey Epstein’s contact with former UK cabinet minister Lord Peter Mandelson is laid bare in a newly released report that describes repeated meetings between the disgraced financier and the politician he knew as “Petie”.
The internal JPMorgan report from 2019, filed to a New York court on Tuesday, found that “Jeffrey Epstein appears to maintain a particularly close relationship with Prince Andrew the Duke of York and Lord Peter Mandelson, a senior member of the British government”.
The bank’s probe — codenamed Project Jeep, and commissioned to shed light on JPMorgan’s 15-year relationship with Epstein — refers to various meetings and conversations between Epstein and Mandelson.
It suggests that in June 2009, when he was the UK business secretary, Mandelson stayed at Epstein’s lavish townhouse in Manhattan, while the financier was in prison for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
JPMorgan has faced two high-profile lawsuits over its decision to keep banking Epstein until 2013. It has in turn sued former executive Jes Staley, who was for a period Epstein’s private banker, alleging he withheld information. Staley, who went on to lead Barclays, denies the allegations.
A high-profile money manager, Epstein was found dead in a prison cell in 2019 — deemed suicide by hanging — while awaiting trial on new charges of sex trafficking minors.
Epstein courted influential figures around the world, in both finance and politics, with former US presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump among those to have enjoyed his hospitality.
Mandelson was a pivotal figure in modern British politics as co-architect of the election-winning “New Labour” alongside former prime minister Tony Blair.
In June 2009, months after Mandelson had returned to government to prop up the beleaguered administration of Blair’s successor Gordon Brown, he was given the additional title of “first secretary of state”.
Days later Epstein wrote to Staley, then his personal banker at JPMorgan: “Well for all intends [sic] and purposes peter mandelson is now deputy prime minister.”
At the time Epstein was serving an 18-month sentence at the private wing of the Palm Beach County Stockade for soliciting a young girl. He was not released on probation until July 22 2009.
Even from behind bars, Epstein was still in regular communication with many of his influential contacts.
In the emails referred to in the JPMorgan report, Epstein writes to Staley on June 17 to say: “Peter will be staying at 71st over weekend, do you want to organize either you, or you and Jamie,, quiertly [sic],, up to you.”
“Jamie” is an apparent reference to JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon; Staley replied to Epstein that he would come if he was in town but Dimon was in Asia. Mandelson has refused to confirm or deny that he stayed that weekend at Epstein’s $77mn townhouse at 9 East 71st Street on New York’s Upper East Side.
Elsewhere in the emails, Mandelson — still business secretary — messaged Epstein on March 29 2010 referencing an apparent health issue and adding: “Can Jes send me email on issues re Dodds/Volcker”, a reference to new US banking regulations enacted in the wake of the global financial crisis.
On two later occasions, in November 2010 and January 2011, when Mandelson was no longer in government, Epstein noted to Staley that “Petie” was with him in Paris, where the financier owned a sumptuous apartment.
It is not clear when Mandelson first met Epstein, although a report in 2002 in New York Magazine described him in attendance at an intimate dinner party at Epstein’s Manhattan home alongside Trump and other figures.
Last year a photograph emerged of Mandelson and Epstein celebrating a birthday at Epstein’s Paris apartment in January 2007. A previous photograph from 2005 showed the two men shopping together in the Caribbean.
They were introduced by Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the one-time Labour MP and tycoon Robert Maxwell. She is serving 20 years in prison for assisting Epstein in sex trafficking under-age girls.
In 2014 Mandelson agreed to be a “founding citizen” of the TerraMar Project, a non-profit ocean conservation group founded by Ghislaine Maxwell that had financial support from Epstein.
One person close to Mandelson said he had never done business with Epstein and the association was principally through Ghislaine: “As we now better understand, she procured many things for him, including prominent folk of influence.”
The person said it was “obvious” that Mandelson, who is gay, would not have taken advantage of young women procured by Epstein for others.
A spokesman for the Labour peer said: “Lord Mandelson very much regrets ever having been introduced to Epstein. This connection has been a matter of public record for some time. He never had any kind of professional or business relationship with Epstein in any form.”
Mandelson’s dealings with the super-rich have long been his Achilles heel, forcing him into resignations on two occasions in the early days of the New Labour government.
He quit as a cabinet minister in 1998 after the disclosure of a secret £373,000 loan to buy a house, and resigned again in 2001 after being accused of helping one of the Hinduja brothers get a passport in return for a £1mn donation to the government’s Millennium Dome project. (He was cleared by an inquiry.)
The Labour peer’s apparent trip to Epstein’s house in New York in 2009 came only a year after a scandal involving Mandelson’s stay with Oleg Deripaska, a Russian aluminium billionaire, on a luxury yacht off the coast of Corfu — arranged by banker Nat Rothschild, a mutual friend.
Later in the summer of 2009 Mandelson returned to Corfu as a guest of the Rothschild family where he once again courted controversy, this time by meeting the son of Libyan leader Muammer Gaddafi.
In January the following year, Staley asked Epstein — just months after his release from jail — if he could assist in securing an audience with either Mandelson or Alistair Darling, at the time the British chancellor of the exchequer.
Epstein wrote to Staley: “I’ve set up you and peter to meet in davos with darling,” a reference to the World Economic Forum that was taking place in Switzerland. A few days later, Staley wrote to Epstein that he saw “Peter last night. Darling in 20 minutes. Will talk again with Peter this AM.”
Darling said he had no recollection of meeting Staley, then a senior executive at JPMorgan, and did not have any dealings with Epstein. “Why would I?” he asked.
An ensuing exchange recounted in the report suggests that Staley was interested in the pending sale of parts of Sempra Commodities by Royal Bank of Scotland, which was forced to divest some assets following a UK government bailout. Months later, JPMorgan bought the business for $1.7bn.
Darling said that any meeting on government business would have been attended by civil servants and that the Treasury was not involved in the running of RBS. The person close to Mandelson said he met Staley at Davos to discuss the banking crisis but that Epstein “certainly” did not arrange the meeting.
“Epstein liked to show off his political connections and was clearly doing so to JPMorgan although Peter was not aware of this at the time,” said the person close to Mandelson.
Other communications made public in the related litigation have portrayed Epstein as an aggressive social climber who often overstated his connections and influence to impress friends and business partners, and sometimes pretended to have more sway in the corridors of power than he actually had.
The person close to Mandelson noted that as business secretary during the financial crisis he had a “constant dialogue” with bank chiefs.
The emails also offer insights into how Mandelson swapped politics for business after Labour lost the general election on May 6 2010.
It was not until November 2010 that Mandelson set up his own business Global Counsel, which has now blossomed into an advisory firm with international reach.
But his thoughts had already turned to business within days of Labour’s election defeat.
On May 27 2010 he wrote to Epstein: “This is thing I am speaking to in Shanghai. If you can open the attachments you will see the entire Chinese banking fraternity is attending. Isn’t it something that JPM should be represented at if they want to spread their wings in China?” Epstein forwarded the message to Staley. Then in October, Staley forwarded Epstein an email from Mandelson talking about his recent trip to Congo Brazzaville.
“I talked at length with President Sassou N’Guesso, including about the above new mine. Exploration, he told me, has been undertaken by a consortium of investors backed by JPMorgan. The government is reaching a final decision on whether to issue a full mining licence. I spoke to the minister of mines about this.”
Two weeks later Epstein told Staley that “petie is just back from russia”.
On October 27, Staley forwarded Epstein an email he sent to Mandelson that appeared to include internal JPMorgan Chase information on a deal regarding the privatisation of businesses in Russia. Staley told colleagues: “When Lord Mandelson can help, please let me know.”
Today Mandelson remains chair and partner at Global Counsel, which does not publish its client list. He is also seen as an influential figure inside the Labour party under its current leadership.
