LONDON: The British government on Wednesday published a batch of documents related to the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US, as police investigate potential misconduct stemming from the ex-diplomat\u2019s ties to the late Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n
The 147-page release was published Wednesday on the government website.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers have forced Prime Minister Keir Starmer\u2019s government to disclose thousands of files about the decision to name Mandelson to the key diplomatic post at the start of US President Donald Trump\u2019s second term, despite a past friendship with the convicted sex offender.<\/p>\n
The government has said the files will show that Mandelson misled officials about the extent of the relationship. But Starmer is facing a political storm over his decision to give him the Washington job.<\/p>\n
Mandelson, 72, a former Cabinet minister, ambassador and elder statesman of the governing Labour Party, was arrested Feb. 23 at his London home on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He has been released without bail conditions as the police investigation continues.<\/p>\n
He has previously denied wrongdoing and hasn\u2019t been charged. He does not face allegations of sexual misconduct.<\/p>\n
Cabinet minister Darren Jones said the \u201cfirst tranche of documents\u201d will be published Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
The documents are being published in batches after review by Parliament\u2019s Intelligence and Security Committee. Police have asked the government not to release files that could compromise their criminal investigation into Mandelson.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe documents that will be published today later to Parliament will provide full transparency about the appointments process, bar one document that has been held back by the Metropolitan Police because of an ongoing criminal investigation,\u201d Jones told broadcaster ITV.<\/p>\n
Starmer fired Mandelson in September after an earlier release of documents showed he had maintained contact with Epstein after the financier\u2019s 2008 conviction for sexual offenses involving a minor.<\/p>\n
Further details about Mandelson\u2019s ties with Epstein, revealed in a huge trove of files published by the US Department of Justice in January, drove opponents and even some members of Starmer\u2019s Labour Party to call for the prime minister\u2019s resignation. Starmer survived the immediate danger, but his position remains fragile, even though he never met Epstein and is not implicated in his crimes.<\/p>\n
Starmer has apologized to Epstein\u2019s victims and said he was sorry for \u201chaving believed Mandelson\u2019s lies.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Epstein files suggest that Mandelson sent market-sensitive information to the convicted sex offender when he was the UK government\u2019s business secretary after the 2008 financial crisis.<\/p>\n
That includes an internal government report discussing ways the UK could raise money, including by selling off government assets. Mandelson also appears to have told Epstein he would lobby other members of the government to reduce a tax on bankers\u2019 bonuses.<\/p>\n
Mandelson is also facing a separate probe by the European Union\u2019s anti-fraud office for the time he spent as the bloc\u2019s trade representative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON: The British government on Wednesday published a batch of documents related to the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US, as police investigate potential misconduct stemming from the ex-diplomat\u2019s ties to the late Jeffrey Epstein. The 147-page release was published Wednesday on the government website. Lawmakers have forced Prime Minister Keir Starmer\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":95000,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94986"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95001,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94986\/revisions\/95001"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}