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UK Ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson enjoyed a close personal relationship with notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein – and the Labour Party eminence continued to support his “best pal” even after Epstein copped in 2008 to soliciting sex from a minor in Florida, newly released emails show.
Mandelson, 71, expressed outrage over the charges against Epstein, encouraging the disgraced financier to “fight for early release” while expressing his “love” for him, according to messages obtained by Bloomberg News.
“I think the world of you and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened,” Mandelson wrote in a June 2008 email to Epstein. “I can still barely understand it. It just could not happen in Britain.”
Mandelson was serving as the European Union’s commissioner for trade and economic security at the time.
“You have to be incredibly resilient, fight for early release and be philosophical about it as much as you can,” the email continued. “The whole thing has been years of torture and now you have to show the world how big a person you are, and how strong.”
“Your friends stay with you and love you.”
The message – one of more than 100 Mandelson and Epstein exchanged between 2005 and 2010 – was sent the day before Epstein reported to prison in Palm Beach, Fla., to serve an 18-month sentence for procuring a minor for prostitution.
The convicted pervert wound up spending 13 months in confinement, much of that time on work release.
Most of the back-and-forths between the two are short and light, the outlet reported.
Others are cryptic.
“peter, mr. big [sic] has a meeting thursday [sic] with Lefky. I need your guy to remind him one time before the meeting.. then we are done,” Epstein wrote to Mandelson in January 2008.
“I will get a message. He is travelling at moment,” Mandelson responded.
“Lefky” is an apparent reference to Epstein’s defense lawyer Jay Lefkowitz, the outlet reported. It’s unclear who “mr. big” is, but it appears to be someone Mandelson believed could help solve Epstein’s legal troubles.
In an October 2005 exchange, Mandelson and Epstein discussed travel plans to “the island.”
“When are you going to the island at Xmas ?” Mandelson wrote. “I am having trouble getting air tickets to st barts and was wondering about going via US, NY or Miami (but this may also be difficult because of availability of [British Airways] airmiles).”
“What are your plans and do I fit in to them ?”
Epstein, the owner of an infamous private island in the Caribbean, where it is alleged he sex-trafficked scores of women, replied that he would be going there in December and added: “I can pay for your tickets if needed.”
As the Florida investigation into Epstein unfolded, he bemoaned that prosecutors had “very bad info” and bragged that he “of course” passed a polygraph test “with flying colrs.”
“I am following you closely and here whenever you need,” Mandelson wrote to his friend in one email, after asking for an update on the case.
“Worried that I haven’t heard from you,” the ambassador wrote in a message a month later. “Are you seeing them off and winning?”
A few months before Epstein pleaded guilty, Mandelson advised his friend to use techniques from Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” to defend himself.
“Reminder. You are fighting back so you need strategy, strategy, strategy. Remember the Art of War,” Mandelson told Epstein in a February 2008 email.
Epstein, who had access to a computer while incarcerated, even received messages from Mandelson while he was jailed.
“I think the world of you,” the diplomat wrote in one fawning message.
Epstein also floated the idea of Mandelson asking then Florida Gov. Charlie Crist for a pardon.
“Did you come across Governor crist,,from florida,, [sic] he is europe [sic] on a trade mission,” the sex criminal wrote in one jailhouse email. “He would be instrumental in a pardon, as i pled guilty to a STATE offence. how are you,, tell me more.”
Crist told Bloomberg News that he does not recall discussing Epstein with Mandelson and said he was never asked to pardon the financier.
The leaked emails follow the revelation that Mandelson penned a 10-page tribute to Epstein for a birthday book compiled by convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
Mandelson referred to Epstein as his “best pal” in the handwritten letter, which included a photograph of the future keeper of the “Special Relationship” between Washington and London in a bathrobe laughing with his friend.
The birthday book was among a tranche of documents released by the House Oversight Committee earlier this week.
Mandelson said in an interview earlier ths week with the “Harry Cole Saves the West” podcast he regretted carrying on his friendship with Epstein for so long
“I feel a tremendous sense of sympathy for those people, those women, who suffered as a result of his behaviour and his illegal criminal activities,” the envoy said earlier this week.
“And, secondly, I regret very very deeply indeed carrying on that association with him for far longer than I should have done, and I regret very very much that I fell for his lies,” he added. “I fell and accepted assurances that he had given me about his indictment, his original criminal case in Florida, like very many people, I took that at face value.”
“I feel a tremendous sense of regret, not only that I met him in the first place, but I continued the association, and I took that at face value.”
Epstein was charged with federal child sex crimes in 2019 but died in his Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial.
