Gordon Brown has asked the cabinet secretary to investigate whether Peter Mandelson leaked highly sensitive government information to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein while serving as business secretary during the 2008 financial crisis.
The former prime minister wrote to Chris Wormald after newly released US justice department files showed Mandelson forwarded a confidential economic briefing to Epstein in June 2009. The email, sent by Brown's special adviser Nick Butler, detailed potential policy measures and suggested the government had saleable assets. Mandelson added: "Interesting note that's gone to the PM." Epstein replied asking what assets, and a redacted email responded: "Land, property I guess."
Brown said: "I have today asked the cabinet secretary to investigate the disclosure of confidential and market sensitive information from the then business department during the global financial crisis." He called for a "wider and more intensive inquiry" after earlier attempts to find departmental records proved unsuccessful, and demanded the results be published as soon as possible.
Butler said he was considering reporting the matter to the police, describing the leak as "a breach of trust, presumably intended to give Epstein the chance to make money." Keir Starmer suggested Mandelson should resign from the House of Lords and that the upper chamber should urgently modernise its disciplinary procedures to strip him of his peerage. Mandelson resigned his Labour membership on Sunday.
The documents also show Mandelson received an analysis of business lending from minister Shriti Vadera in August 2009, which he appears to have shared with Epstein. He also allegedly told Epstein he would lobby ministers over a bankers' bonus tax and confirmed an imminent euro bailout the day before it was announced in 2010.
