The president of the United States, Donald Trump, along with Peter Mandelson, then British ambassador to the United States, on May 8, 2025 at the White House.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images News | Getty images
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Keir Starmer, fired the United Kingdom ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, after more details arose about the diplomat’s relationship with the sentenced sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein.
American legislators published a series of documents this week that revealed Mandelson’s apparent friendship with Epstein, including a Mandelson letter in which he called his “best friend” Financial. Epstein committed suicide in prison in 2019 while facing federal positions of sex trafficking.
“In the light of additional information in the emails written by Peter Mandelson, the prime minister asked the Foreign Secretary to withdraw it as an ambassador,” said a statement from the British Office of Foreign Affairs, Commonwealth and Development, or FCDO.
“The emails show that the depth and scope of Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is materially different from the one known at the time of his appointment.”
“In particular, Peter Mandelson’s suggestion that Jeffrey Epstein’s first condemnates was unfair and should be challenged is a new information. In that, and aware of the victims of Epstein’s crimes, he has been withdrawn as an ambassador with immediate effect,” the statement added.
It is not clear who will happen to Mandelson in the vital role of the United States ambassador, possibly the most important diplomat in the United Kingdom Foreign Ministry, since Great Britain seeks to maintain its “special relationship” with the United States.
The role tends to be occupied by major and established politicians, but whoever happens to Mandelson will have Curry with a meaningless White House oriented to an agreement.
Starmer will be anxious to maintain his seemingly warm relationship with Trump, with leaders enjoying a good relationship despite his different political inclinations.
Trump, known for being an Anglophile, will come to the United Kingdom next week for a state visit. His warm feelings towards the United Kingdom were seen as a reason for the rapid commercial agreement that countries arrived in June, which resulted in a 10% reference tariff rate in British goods imported by the United States.
Political pressure
Starmer has had an increasing pressure to disseminate details about how much the government knew about the Mandelson political veteran deals with Epstein before appointing him for the role of the United States ambassadors at the end of 2024.
Only one day ago, Starmer defended his colleague, telling British legislators: “I have confidence in him”, when I get pressed on his appointment in the weekly session of questions and answers in Parliament.
The White House has had a similar pressure to publish documents related to the former friendship of President Donald Trump with Epstein, although it is said that his relationship was lightened in the mid -2000s.
In July, Trump said that even if the courts published transcripts of the Grand Jury in the criminal cases of Epstein and procurers convicted of girls, Ghislaine Maxwell, “nothing will be good enough for the rioters and lunatics of the radical left.”
On Monday, the Democrats of the House of Representatives published a screenshot of what seemed to be a letter signed by Trump, which was included in a collection of notes sent to Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003. The letter presented a cryptic conversation between Trump and Epstein inside a seemingly hand -drawn scheme of a torso of a woman. Trump’s firm is located just below the hips of the drawing.
The letter is publicly visible for the first time since its existence was first reported by the Wall Street Journal in mid -July. Trump has not only denied having written the letter, but demanded the newspaper for defamation. The White House has said that the image was not drawn or signed by Trump.
CNBC has requested comments from a Trump legal team spokesman.
– Kevin Breuninger and Erin Doherty of CNBC contributed to inform this story.
