Peter Mandelson Quits Britain’s Labour Party Over New Epstein Reports

Peter Mandelson, Britain’s former ambassador to the United States, resigned from the Labour Party late on Sunday after new reporting on his ties to the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, according to Al Jazeera, Reuters (via Cyprus Mail) and PBS NewsHour, which carried an Associated Press report.

The reports drew on Epstein investigative files that the U.S. Department of Justice made public on Friday. The Financial Times reported that the newly released files showed accounts connected to Mandelson had received $75,000 from Epstein, according to Reuters as carried by Cyprus Mail. The Associated Press, as carried by PBS, described bank documents suggesting three payments totaling $75,000 in 2003 and 2004 to accounts linked to Mandelson or his partner. Al Jazeera, citing the Financial Times and the BBC, gave the same amount and years.

In a letter to the party, Mandelson said he had been further linked to the “understandable furore surrounding Jeffrey Epstein” and did not wish to cause “further embarrassment” to Labour, according to Al Jazeera and Reuters.

On the payments, Mandelson said reports that he received money from Epstein were false but that he would investigate them, Reuters reported and Al Jazeera confirmed. The AP account said he did not remember receiving the money and would check whether the documents were authentic.

The release also included a photograph of Mandelson in his underwear beside a woman whose face was obscured, according to Al Jazeera and Reuters.

Emails from 2009, when Mandelson was business secretary, appear to show him telling Epstein he would work to reduce a tax on bankers’ bonuses, according to the AP account carried by PBS and to Al Jazeera, which cited the Telegraph and the Financial Times.

Mandelson was dismissed as ambassador to Washington last year after emails emerged about his association with Epstein, Al Jazeera and Reuters both reported; the AP account dates his removal to September.

The documents raise questions that the reporting available on Sunday and Monday did not settle. The bank records are described only as suggesting that money went to accounts linked to Mandelson or his partner, and Mandelson’s own position is that he has no recollection of the payments, cannot say whether the documents are genuine and will look into them.