Mandelson leaked No 10 documents to Epstein – who then helped him pursue multi-million dollar jobs

Multiple documents in the Epstein files show Peter Mandelson forwarding confidential Government emails to Jeffrey Epstein in 2009 and 2010.

The leaked material concerned live policy issues of immediate financial interest to Epstein and his circle. This report contains the full text of the most significant known leaked emails, together with a short explanation of the context and value of the emails.

This was all during the same period that Mandelson (via Epstein) advised Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan to “mildly threaten” the Chancellor to reverse a proposed tax on bank bonuses.

The leaks and the assistance to JPM were followed within months by highly valuable job offers from the very sector that benefited from that intelligence – job offers that Epstein procured and assisted with. And those job offers were so lucrative that Mandelson rejected an offer of $3-5m/year.

This article was updated as the story developed. Final update: 8 February 2026. See our separate analysis on the prospects of prosecuting Peter Mandelson.

The background

In August 2009 the UK economy was still deep in the aftermath of the 2007–08 financial crisis, with the banking sector severely weakened and credit markets badly disrupted. Bank lending to businesses had collapsed: in the six months to February 2009, net lending by UK and foreign banks to UK businesses fell from £53.5 billion to just £8.6 billion. Small and medium-sized enterprises were hit hardest. It’s the reduction in lending that caused a financial crisis to become a crisis for the rest of the economy.

Jeffrey Epstein exchanged hundreds and possibly thousands of emails with Peter Mandelson. In June 2009 he told his girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, that Mr Mandelson was “for all intents and purposes” deputy prime minister:

(Epstein referred to “Petie” frequently when talking about Peter Mandelson to others, and sometimes when corresponding with Mr Mandelson.)

That relationship later paid off.

The August 2009 leak

Shriti Vadera was a Minister of State¹ who played a key role in the UK’s response to the financial crisis. On 2 August 2009, she wrote a memo (in her characteristic capital letters) with proposals for pushing the banks to increase their lending. Ms Vadera sent it to other advisers in Number 10, plus Jeremy Heywood (the Prime Minister’s Principal Private Secretary) and Peter Mandelson (at the time a senior Cabinet Minister and Business Secretary).

Jeremy Heywood replied, talking about the importance of the non-bank lending market and securitisation.

This was a confidential discussion, which would have been of keen interest to Wall Street.

Four seconds after receiving Mr Heywood’s email, somebody forwarded it to Jeffrey Epstein (whose email address was [email protected]):

The sender’s name is redacted. It could have been any of the recipients, or someone they forwarded the email to. Whilst Peter Mandelson was one of the recipients of the original email from Ms Vadera, his name doesn’t appear on Jeremy Heywood’s reply – but he could have been bcc’d, or the recipient list may be incomplete or have been silently redacted or deleted.

The June 2009 leak

A few months earlier, Nick Butler, a special adviser to Gordon Brown, had sent an email to the Prime Minister with proposals for increasing private sector investment and improving Government finances. He suggested that, instead of focusing on spending cuts and tax rises, the Government should consider disposing of £20bn of “saleable assets” that didn’t need to be in the public sector.

The email was sent to Ms Vadera, Christina Scott (Private Secretary to the Prime Minister) and Peter Mandelson.

Mr Mandelson forwarded it straight to Jeffrey Epstein:

Epstein responded two hours later asking what “saleable assets” Mr Butler was referring to. Mr Mandelson responded that he thought it meant land and property.

It seems likely that Mr Mandelson was also the source of the August leak:

• At the top of both email chains, the sender’s name has been redacted. In the August email this leaves the leaker unidentified. In the June email, Mr Mandelson’s name appears later in the chain. A key piece of information: the redacted sender line at the top of both emails is the same length, which is consistent with both emails having been sent by the same person.
• One small but telling detail is the time shown on the emails. In summer 2009, the UK was on British Summer Time, one hour ahead of GMT. The internal Government emails in these chains are correctly timestamped one hour ahead. But the messages forwarded to Jeffrey Epstein are timestamped at GMT, not British Summer Time.² That doesn’t mean the sender was abroad. Rather, it suggests the emails were sent from a personal email account or device set to GMT, not directly from a Government email system. In other words, these look like deliberate forwards from a personal inbox, not accidental leaks from an official one. Either both leaks were sent by the same person (Mr Mandelson), or Mr Mandelson and one other person independently used a personal email account or device configured to GMT. The former is plainly the simpler explanation.
• Also consistent (but of course not probative), both leaks were sent by someone who used a BlackBerry and hadn’t turned off the default signature.
• The fact the email from Mr Heywood was forwarded only four seconds later suggests that one of the direct recipients forwarded it. We rather expect Mr Mandelson was one of the recipients (it would be standard Government practice to “reply all”) and that his name has been omitted, redacted or deleted. However if that is wrong, and Mr Mandelson was not a direct recipient then he is surely in the clear; this is something Number 10 should be able to check.
• The Epstein files contain extensive correspondence between Mr Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein. There is no evidence that we are aware of that any of the other recipients on the August email chain (Shriti Vadera, Jeremy Heywood, John Pond) were in contact with Epstein.

The question can be speedily resolved by obtaining the unredacted email from the US Department of Justice.

It was four months after this that Mr Mandelson worked against his own Government, advising JPMorgan (via Epstein) to “mildly threaten” the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The 2010 leaks

Mr Mandelson continued to share other confidential information with Jeffrey Epstein throughout 2010. It’s pretty amusing to see Jes Staley congratulate Epstein on predicting the actions of the British Government, when the same thread shows exactly how Epstein could make such accurate predictions:

(Thanks to Sophie for finding that)

Sempra

In January 2010 there was a discussion between Mr Mandelson, Epstein and Jes Staley regarding JPMorgan’s purchase of the Sempra commodities business from the now-Government controlled Royal Bank of Scotland Group. The deal was announced on 16 February 2010.

It looks highly improper for a serving Cabinet minister to be “helpful” (in whatever way) to a specific private transaction involving a major bank, via an intermediary like Epstein.

US financial reform

On 28 March 2010, Jeffrey Epstein asked Mandelson to lobby Larry Summers³, President Obama’s chief economic adviser. He wanted him to ask Mr Summers to meet with Jes Staley of JPMorgan to discuss the proposed Volcker rule (which would, broadly speaking, prevent banks taking trading positions). Epstein said that he (Epstein) couldn’t do this directly.

Mr Mandelson wasn’t feeling well, but when he recovered the next morning, his response was to ask Staley to produce a briefing note.

Epstein asked Staley to do this, and to “craft an argument why Volcker is bad for Europe”:

Staley prepared that note, and Epstein forwarded it to Mr Mandelson.

(These emails were found by Jim Pickard of the Financial Times.)

Three days later, 31 March 2010, the Chancellor of the Exchequer met Larry Summers, and Mandelson sent Epstein a short summary of the meeting straight afterwards.

(Thanks again to Sophie)

Mr Mandelson’s principal private secretary subsequently sent him a formal note of the meeting.⁴ It contained high level details of the new banking regulation and taxation that Mr Summers and the US Administration were seeking to enact, and some discussion of how the US should engage with France and Germany. Mr Mandelson forwarded the note to Jeffrey Epstein five minutes after receiving it.⁵

Epstein responded with suggestions as to how hedge funds should be taxed, and then detailed questions about the drafting of the new US rules (“may” vs “shall). Mr Mandelson was meeting Larry Summers for breakfast the next morning – there is a possible implication that Mr Mandelson would discuss the questions with him (but that is not clear, and there’s nothing on the point in the subsequent notes).

The next day, 1 April 2010, Mr Mandelson had that meeting with Larry Summers. Mr Summers shared some fairly candid views on the likely form any new banking regulation would take. At 1.22pm, Mr Mandelson’s private secretary sent a note of the meeting to Mr Mandelson. Within two minutes, Mr Mandelson forwarded it to Jeffrey Epstein:

(These emails were found by Gary Gibbon and the Channel 4 News team).

The €500bn Eurozone bailout

On 9 May 2010,⁶ Mr Mandelson wrote to Epstein confirming market rumours of the €500bn bailout of the Eurozone. Mr Mandelson said the bailout would be announced that night, and it was:

Steven Swinford of The Times found this email.

Gordon Brown’s resignation

A few days later, Mr Mandelson gave Epstein advance notice of Gordon Brown’s resignation.

We can be reasonably confident⁷ that Mr Mandelson’s first email was sent at 10.07am on 10 May 2010. Gordon Brown’s resignation wasn’t public until about 7.19pm that evening.

This email was found by Gabriel Pogrund of the Sunday Times.

How did Epstein view Mandelson?

We perhaps get a clue from this exchange. Epstein and businessman/lawyer David Stern talk about Mandelson as if he’s on retainer:

The context was Terra Firma’s troubled private equity acquisition of EMI, which all-but destroyed the historic music group. Citi had financed the acquisition, and were about to enforce and acquire EMI from Terra Firma.⁸

Jeffrey Epstein casually suggests Mr Mandelson could help; David Stern responds that in his view it’s too early. There is no surprise or confusion at the way the serving Business Secretary is name-dropped into the discussion. That suggests that both Epstein and Stern viewed Mandelson as someone whose political influence and contacts could be deployed if and when it became useful.

Two weeks later, Epstein did reach out to Mr Mandelson. It’s unclear whether they spoke.⁹

And here, the Epstein-Mandelson relationship looks like the relationship of a client to their lobbyist, with Epstein asking Mandelson to set up a meeting between Larry Summers and Jes Staley:

Was there a quid pro quo?

The payments

We know that in 2003 and 2004, Mr Epstein wired a total of $75,000 to Mr Mandelson:

We don’t know what the payments were for, or if there were others. Mr Mandelson says he can’t recall the payments, but hasn’t clearly denied receiving them. The bank statements look genuine.

A month before the first payment, Ghisliane Maxwell sent Mr Mandelson an email which might have included a request for his bank account number (it says she wants to discuss the “act. for the money”):

This was of course years before the email leaks. However at around the same time as the leaks, Mr Mandelson’s then-partner was receiving payments from Jeffrey Epstein to fund his osteopathy course:

Mr Mandelson has claimed he thought it was a bursary from Epstein’s foundation. There is no evidence of this in the emails. It appears to have been an entirely personal arrangement, and the evidence suggests Mr Mandelson knew that at the time:

The job opportunities

Far more lucrative than the cash payments was Jeffrey Epstein’s help in obtaining a high-paying job.

The email in the Epstein files suggest that Mandelson had a particularly close interest in JPM, speaking to Jes Staley both directly and via Epstein (but of course we only see the emails to/from Epstein). Mandelson also looked for commercial opportunities for JPM – for example forwarding an email he’d received inviting him to a business forum in Shanghai:

And here we see Mandelson, a serving Cabinet minister, endorsing JPM involvement in a friend’s commercial listing:

Soon after the 6 May 2010 election, when Gordon Brown was still Prime Minister, Staley told Mandelson that supporting Mr Brown would be “bad form commercially”. We take that to mean “would be bad for your future job prospects”:

Then, two days after the change of Government in 2010, Epstein wrote to Jes Staley – it appears they were discussing a potential Deutsche Bank job for Peter Mandelson:

That appeared to pay off in June, with Deutsche offering Mr Mandelson $4-10m/year. The CEO’s stated reason for the hire was to “be able to access governments, families and corporations”:

But in July, Mr Mandelson was still looking:

And he thought he could do better than Deutsche Bank’s $3-5m:

And some unknown “DB revelation” intervened:

And here he is approaching Glencore (a letter we’d suggest is not very well written or persuasive; Epstein was much better at this):

They’re talking about advisory roles for a reason. Ministerial rules required that ministers must seek advice from the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACoBA) about any appointment/employment they wanted to take up within two years of leaving office. So Mr Mandelson had to obtain permission for most jobs (which might well not be forthcoming) – but advisory roles were technically out of scope of the rules in force at the time.¹⁰

Mr Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein were fully aware of the ACoBA restriction. This email shows Epstein telling Mr Mandelson he was “working around your restriction” (here they appear to be discussing a role advising BP on the fallout from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill).

By August Mandelson and Epstein seem to be just throwing ideas at each other – first discussing Blackstone:

And then Barrick, the gold and copper mining company:

At some point Mandelson decides he doesn’t want a full-time job, because he wants to build his own “Global Counsel” business. He wants a one-day-a-week job that still pays millions. That ends up being with Lazard, the financial adviser and asset manager.

At the start of the engagement with Lazard, Mandelson doesn’t seem to know anything about them – he asks what Epstein thinks of the firm. He relies on Epstein throughout the process, asking for advice on whether to tell JPM he’s speaking to Lazard, and even what to say when he meets the Lazard CEO:

It was announced in January 2010 that Peter Mandelson was becoming a senior adviser to Lazard. Press reports at the time speculated he could be earning “as much as $1m per year”. The Lazard role was one day per week; Deutsche Bank was full time – but the emails above suggest his actual earnings likely exceeded that figure.

After the two year ACoBA period ended, he was appointed Chairman of the international arm. As ACoBA Chair has said, the rules are “next to useless”.¹¹

Mandelson kept looking for more opportunities, with Epstein’s help. Here he is in 2011, asking whether he should try to get on Facebook’s board:

And naturally Mandelson sought Epstein’s advice at the very earliest stage of establishing his consultancy, Global Counsel:

The cover-up

In 2011, reports started to appear that Mandelson had been meeting Epstein. The Telegraph picked up a Florida court application that Epstein had made to leave his house arrest, in order to meet a senior British Minister in New York:

Mandelson had tried to meet Epstein, but had to cancel, saying “NYC… here I don’t come”:¹²

When the Telegraph story broke, Epstein and Mandelson seem to have liaised to get their story straight – they hadn’t in fact met:

The co-founder of Global Counsel, now its CEO, prepared a statement denying the meeting, and suggesting that Mandelson barely knew Epstein. He then checked this statement with Epstein himself:

That was a highly deceptive statement; we view it as part of a cover-up.

(Thanks to Ali Lyon at CityAM who found the Wegg-Prosser email.¹³)

We believe the evidence shows that Jeffrey Epstein was pivotal to the creation and development of Global Counsel. There is much more on this in CityAM and the Financial Times.

The complete picture

Peter Mandelson wasn’t bribed by Jeffrey Epstein, and certainly wasn’t blackmailed by him. We believe the evidence suggests that Mr Mandelson provided intelligence and lobbying because he thought it was in his own commercial interest. He was correct. The payback was far greater than $10,000 of osteopathy tuition fees – it was Mr Mandelson’s subsequent highly lucrative career, and the (even more lucrative) creation of Global Counsel. All of which was enabled and assisted by Jeffrey Epstein and his network of contacts.

As Mr Mandelson said to Epstein, “it’s about reputation and perception”:

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Thanks to K for additional research.

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