Peter Mandelson has been requested to testify to the US Congress over his relationship with the disgraced paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
In a letter US politicians instructed the ex-Labour grandee they thought he had “critical information” that may help their investigation into Epstein.
Two members of the House of Representatives, Suhas Subramanyam and Robert Garcia, have written to Mandelson asking him to reply questions from the House’s Oversight Committee.
They wrote: “While you no longer serve as British ambassador to the United States and have stepped down from the House of Lords, it is clear that you possessed extensive social and business ties to Jeffrey Epstein and hold critical information pertaining to our investigation of Epstein’s operations.
“Given the appalling allegations concerning Epstein’s conduct, we request that you just make your self accessible for a transcribed interview with Committee employees concerning the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators.”
Mandelson has been given until the end of the month to respond.
He has previously said he was “mistaken to consider Epstein following his conviction and to proceed my affiliation with him afterwards. I apologise unequivocally for doing so to the ladies and women who suffered.”
Last week Sir Keir Starmer said he was sorry for believing Mandelson’s “lies” and for appointing him to the role of Britain’s ambassador to the US.
Following a barrage of criticism from his own MPs, the prime minister also issued a frank apology to the victims of Epstein.
He also admitted that he knew Mandelson had had contact with Epstein before giving him the job, but said: “None of us knew the depths and the darkness of that relationship.”
Mandelson is also being investigated by the Metropolitan Police after the government handed over a dossier of extraordinary emails that suggested the former Labour peer had leaked sensitive government information to Epstein.
Officials are also thought to be reviewing 25 years of records to find evidence linking Mandelson to Epstein. Civil servants are examining correspondence that dates back from his time as Northern Ireland Secretary under Tony Blair between 1999 and 2002, as well as when he was business secretary under Gordon Brown nearly a decade later.
Mandelson was sacked in September when the size of his contact with Epstein emerged.
But the newest launch of paperwork, which point out that he shared market-sensitive data with the financier in 2009 in the course of the world monetary disaster despatched shockwaves by means of Westminster. The information additionally counsel {that a} yr later, he tipped Epstein off about an imminent 500 billion-euro deal to prop up the European single forex. Payments reportedly totaling $75,000 from Epstein to accounts linked to Mandelson or his associate Reinaldo Avia da Silva are additionally revealed.
Since the scandal erupted the prime minister has misplaced his chief of employees, his high civil servant and his director of communications. On Monday, Sir Keir himself additionally confronted calls to resign from the chief of Scottish Labour, because the get together tries to maneuver on from the disaster.
A consultant for Mandelson has been approached for remark.
This is a breaking information story, extra follows …
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/mandelson-summoned-us-congress-epstein-b2920119.html