JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
A man known in British politics as the Prince of Darkness has now been arrested. Peter Mandelson is a veteran politician from the ruling Labour Party, who most recently served as ambassador to the Trump administration before he was fired for ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Tonight, plainclothes police arrived at his London doorstep and arrested him for allegedly passing sensitive government documents to the late sex offender. NPR's Lauren Frayer joins us now from London. Hi.
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: Hi, Juana.
SUMMERS: Hi. So Lauren, just last week, King Charles' brother was arrested in an investigation that was related to Jeffrey Epstein. Is this connected to that?
FRAYER: Yeah. So both Mandelson and the former Prince Andrew, who's now been stripped of his royal title, so he just goes by Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor - both of them are accused of sharing confidential government information with Epstein - Mandelson when he was a cabinet secretary after the 2008 banking crisis and Andrew when he was a U.K. trade envoy in the early 2000s. Now, neither of them has commented on those specific allegations, and neither has been charged. But they're both under investigation for what police call misconduct in public office, which carries up to life in prison. I should say Andrew is also accused of sexual misconduct. He settled a lawsuit with one of Epstein's underage victims but denies any wrongdoing. Mandelson is not accused of any sexual misconduct.
SUMMERS: Got it. Well, remind us if you can, who Mandelson is and how he earned that nickname that we mentioned, the Prince of Darkness.
FRAYER: Yeah. So he's been a household name in British politics for more than 30 years. He was a member of Parliament. He was a lord. He recently quit the House of Lords over this scandal. And then, most recently, he was ambassador to Washington. Prime Minister Keir Starmer fired him from that post last year when the extent of his Epstein ties came out, and Starmer's actually been forced to defend his own job over his judgment in naming Mandelson in the first place. Starmer says Mandelson lied to him during the vetting process.
SUMMERS: And what has Mandelson had to say?
FRAYER: Mandelson admits he was friends with Epstein, and he's apologized for that. He's also apologized to Epstein's victims. Mandelson happens to be gay, and he says that Epstein kept him, quote, "separate from his sex life with underage girls." He says he didn't see anything.
You asked about his nickname, Prince of Darkness. Mandelson has a reputation as sort of a Machiavellian spin doctor - something he was proud of. I mean, he's famously defiant, known for political comebacks. He once yelled in an election victory speech, I am a fighter, not a quitter. It's sort of his mantra. And he seemed like he had been trying to rehabilitate his image in recent months - you know, giving interviews, writing op-eds. But then, in late January came the latest batch of Epstein files from the Department of Justice.
SUMMERS: And those said what about Mandelson?
FRAYER: So there are nearly 6,000 files with Mandelson's name on them. There are email chains where it appears that Mandelson would receive a message with government information and within - in one case - four seconds, forwarded it to Epstein. There are other messages in which purportedly reveal Mandelson giving Epstein advice to pass to his banker friends that they could use to lobby against the British government, which Mandelson, at the time, was serving. There's even one where Mandelson apparently tells Epstein he thinks JPMorgan's CEO, Jamie Dimon, should threaten the U.K. finance minister to get what he wants. So those are the messages that led to this investigation.
SUMMERS: And just quickly, Lauren, before I let you go, what's the local reaction been like?
FRAYER: There's disgust at what these Epstein files purportedly show - you know, cozy relations between bankers and top government ministers. There's whiplash here, you know - two big arrests in recent days, Mandelson and Andrew - Prince - former Prince Andrew last week. And there's speculation about how this will damage the monarchy and how will this damage Starmer's ruling party - both of them.
SUMMERS: NPR's Lauren Frayer in London. Thank you.
FRAYER: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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