{"id":124425,"date":"2025-09-09T05:15:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T05:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/124425\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T05:15:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T05:15:06","slug":"mandelson-called-epstein-best-pal-in-birthday-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/124425\/","title":{"rendered":"Mandelson ‘called Epstein best pal’ in birthday message"},"content":{"rendered":"

Democrats in Congress released copies of the so-called “birthday book” after the documents were subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n

The documents also include a note featuring a drawing of a woman’s body allegedly signed by US President Donald Trump<\/a>. The White House on Monday denied its authenticity and said the president “did not draw this picture, and he did not sign it”.<\/p>\n

The “birthday book” was put together by Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s British co-conspirator and ex-girlfriend who was convicted in 2021 of conspiring to traffic girls for sex. It is dated three years before allegations of sex abuse by Epstein became public in 2006.<\/p>\n

When approached by the BBC, Lord Mandelson’s spokesperson said that his connection to Epstein “has been a matter of public record for some time”.<\/p>\n

The spokesperson also referred to previous comments Mandelson made to the Financial Times, in which he said: “I regret ever meeting him or being introduced to him by his partner Ghislaine Maxwell.”<\/p>\n

The BBC has also approached the Foreign Office for comment.<\/p>\n

A 2019 internal report by JP Morgan bank, filed to a New York court in 2023, said that Epstein kept a “particularly close relationship with Prince Andrew, the Duke of York and Lord Peter Mandelson, a senior member of the British government”.<\/p>\n

In the “birthday book” letter, former Labour cabinet minister Lord Mandelson writes that after Epstein appeared in his life, he “would spend many hours just waiting for him to turn up”.<\/p>\n

“And often, no sooner were you getting used to having him around, you would suddenly be alone… again, leaving you with some ‘interesting’ friends to entertain instead.”<\/p>\n

The letter then includes a photo of Lord Mandelson with two women, whose faces are obscured.<\/p>\n

Lord Mandelson continues: “But wherever he is in the world, he remains my best pal!”<\/p>\n

Following a photo of Mandelson sat with Epstein, he concludes: “Happy Birthday, Jeffrey. We love you!”<\/p>\n

Along with the book, lawmakers also released a trove of documents that include Epstein’s personal address book and his will.<\/p>\n

After the Wall Street Journal first reported on the existence of the “birthday book”, Trump filed a lawsuit against the newspaper’s reporters, publisher and executives, including News Corp’s owner Rupert Murdoch, seeking $10bn (\u00a37.4bn) in damages.<\/p>\n

Epstein was first criminally indicted in 2006 in Florida on a state felony charge of solicitation of prostitution. He died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democrats in Congress released copies of the so-called “birthday book” after the documents were subpoenaed by the House…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-124425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}