Jeffrey epstein

Wednesday

Peter Jones

How the Romans picked their friends

From our UK edition

What a lot of friends Jeffrey Epstein appears to have had! But what did friendship mean to him? Was it simply a matter of reciprocal benefits and obligations? In the ancient world, such interactions were a matter of life and death for the poor (there was no such thing as the welfare state), and of political success or failure for the wealthy and ambitious. But many thought there was far more to real friendship than such purely practical considerations. For Aristotle, having a friend was ‘one of the greatest goods, because there is an unbreakable connection between friendship and virtue, since friends do not wrong one another: justice and friendship are either identical or very close to each other’.

Wednesday

Neal Pollack

Epstein and Lutnick, sitting in a tree?

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick admitted that he went on vacation, with his family, to Jeffrey Epstein’s private island in 2012. How very White Lotus! Suddenly, every ear in Washington cocked Lutnick’s way, like he was starring in an old E.F. Hutton commercial.  “My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies. I had another couple with, they were there as well, with their children, and we had lunch on the island – that is true – for an hour.” Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland gave America this early Valentine’s Day present during ​a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee session on broadband funding – what was supposed to be a dull parliamentary proceeding along the lines of the hundreds that occur in DC every day.

Lutnick Epstein
The Spectator

Portrait of the week: McSweeney resigns, Starmer hangs on and Streeting plots

From our UK edition

Home Morgan McSweeney, the helmsman of Labour, walked the plank by resigning as chief of staff to Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, whom he had advised in 2024 to appoint Lord Mandelson as ambassador to Washington. Mr McSweeney’s resignation statement began: ‘After careful reflection, I have decided to resign from the government,’ as though he had been a member of the government. In a speech meant to be about funding for local communities, Sir Keir said he was ‘sorry for having believed Mandelson’s lies and appointed him’. But he added: ‘I had no reason to believe he was telling anything other than the truth’, even though the Financial Times had in 2023 reported that Mandelson had stayed at Jeffrey Epstein’s house when the financier was in prison.

Andrew Lownie

How Andrew could save the royal family

From our UK edition

The tsunami of Jeffrey Epstein material released this month has been both horrifying and gratifying. It makes clear the extent of Epstein’s penetration of world elites – potentially even at the direction of various foreign intelligence agencies – and that this is a story as much about national security as financial and sexual irregularities. The lack of any proper oversight of the royal family may have given both the Russian and Chinese intelligence services their entry point into the British Establishment. The depositions also confirm the accuracy of what I had discovered researching Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, which was published last August.

Tuesday

Cockburn

Ken Paxton’s turning point

Turning Point USA’s political-action committee showed just how “family friendly” it is Monday – by endorsing serial adulterer Ken Paxton for Texas’s open Senate seat. Paxton, who’s battling Republican incumbent John Cornyn and Congressman Wesley Hunt for his party’s nomination, accepted the endorsement, saying, “I’m proud to be standing alongside Turning Point Action in carrying on the fight to save this country and defend our freedoms.” Sensible Republicans, of which there are at least a half dozen left, understand the hypocrisy of the organization started by the late Charlie Kirk, the world’s most earnest family man, backing one of America’s most ethically compromised politicians.

ken paxton

Monday

Ross Clark

Will the Mandelson affair make loyalty a crime?

Nothing excuses the manner of Peter Mandelson’s communications with Jeffrey Epstein both before and after the latter’s conviction for sex offenses. Nor are the lies which Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor told about breaking off relations with Epstein defensible. Nevertheless, there is something disturbing about what looks like being the inevitable fallout of the Epstein scandal: that no one in public life will ever again risk remaining friends with anyone who has been jailed or disgraced in any other way. It may well extend to people outside public life, too. The principle seems to have been established: that if one of your friends commits a serious offense and you do not instantly cut off all relations with them, then you are guilty of moral turpitude yourself.

mandelson

Sunday

Cockburn

Takeout with Woody, Soon-Yi and Epstein

The more salacious aspects of the Epstein files are well known – but what of the banal side of being a billionaire sex pest? It’s no secret Woody Allen and his wife Soon-Yi Previn were close friends with Epstein, as the trove of emails show. One food-obsessed friend of Cockburn alerted us to the non-stop back and forth of emails, spanning years, between Soon-Yi and a coterie of Epstein assistants. The topic? Scheduling dinners at Epstein’s townhouse, along with directions on what Woody and Soon-Yi would like to order-in that night. Soon-Yi does all the ordering and coordinating, as she explains in an email to one of Epstein’s assistants when asked for an email to pass on to private equity titan Leon Black, “Woody doesn’t email but he texts.

Friday

Cockburn

Prince Andrew’s business blueprint for Trump 2.0

President Trump has had a mixed reaction to the enormous document dump of “Epstein files” from the Department of Justice a week ago. The President had a terse exchange with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins when she asked about the files Tuesday – yet in his pre-Super Bowl NBC interview, Trump was empathetic toward one of his predecessors. “It bothers me that they’re going after Bill Clinton,” he told Tom Llamas, referring to how the former president and his wife, Hillary, were being compelled to testify before Congress about Epstein. Cockburn wonders if that compassion extends to another figure he moved in the same circles as back in the early 2000s: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

andrew epstein trade business
Brendan O’Neill

The Epstein scandal has morphed into a moral panic

That’s it, I’m out. I’m finished with the Epstein scandal. This morning I read about a man who is on the cusp of cancellation because he once sent a flirtatious email to Ghislaine Maxwell, years before her crimes were known about. This is getting ridiculous. It feels like MeToo on steroids. There’s a medieval vibe of finger-pointing and rumor-mongering The man is Casey Wasserman. He’s chair of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics. And there are hollers for him to stand down. All because he once got digitally horny with Ms Maxwell. "I think of you all the time," he wrote in one email. "What do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?" he asked. That’s it. A little bit of lame middle-aged wooing.

Thursday

Spectator Editorial

Epstein, the Clintons and the death of trust

Bill and Hillary Clinton had a choice: face criminal contempt charges or come clean about their friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. After months of resisting, the former president and his wife have now agreed to testify before the House. Clinton will be the first former president to appear before Congress since 1983, when Gerald Ford discussed bicentenary celebrations for the enactment of the Constitution. An appearance of this gravity, however, is unprecedented; it may well mark the start of a true Epstein reckoning in America. The Epstein scandal has become a strange monster, hell-bent on devouring the old elite In typical Clintonian style, the couple presented their initial refusal as a principled stand.

epstein clinton

Wednesday

Neal Pollack

The plight of Peter Attia

The Epstein files, while they still haven’t harpooned their biggest whales, continue to destroy reputations on the side. One of the most unusual scalps claimed last week was that of celebrity doctor and “longevity expert” Peter Attia, creator of the “Outlive” brand. Last month, CBS News named Attia one of 19 new essential contributors. Now it’s cutting ties with him. And they’re not the only ones.   Attia was born in Canada but graduated from Stanford University Medical School in 2001. He spent five years as a general surgery resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he was named "Resident of the Year," followed by a surgical oncology fellowship at the National Cancer Institute focusing on melanoma.

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Melanie McDonagh

The Epstein files are a reminder that emails live forever

From our UK edition

Still they keep coming: email after email from Jeffrey Epstein’s personal correspondence, along with the almost unmanageable amount of other material in the Epstein files. They span two decades and an astonishingly wide range of topics: his Amazon purchases, missing laundry, the banning of his Xbox Live account, his reaction to photos of young women, how he considered potential plea deals and exchanges with famous people. There’s Sarah Ferguson’s message: To: Jeffrey Epstein [jeevacation@gmail.com] From: Sarah Sent: Sat 1/30/2010 10:22:44 PM You are a legend. I really don’t have the words to describe, my love, gratitude for your generosity and kindness. Xx I am at your service. Just marry me.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Peter Mandelson resigns, Keir Starmer returns and gold rallies 

From our UK edition

Home Lord Mandelson resigned his membership of the Labour party and then retired from the House of Lords; some of the three million items released by the US Department of Justice relating to the late Jeffrey Epstein suggested that, while serving as business secretary in Gordon Brown’s cabinet, he sent market-sensitive government information to Epstein. The Metropolitan Police launched a criminal investigation into allegations of misconduct in public office by Lord Mandelson. Mr Brown sent the Met ‘relevant’ information for their investigations. In an exchange with Lord Mandelson two days before Mr Brown’s resignation as PM, Epstein emailed: ‘Bye, bye smelly?’ The Conservatives questioned in parliament the decision to appoint Lord Mandelson ambassador to Washington.

Charles Moore

Why did Peter Mandelson want Jeffrey Epstein to read my column?

From our UK edition

Last Saturday, a friend in Washington emailed to say he had been studying some of the latest 3.5 million pages of Epstein files. A few months ago, I had pointed out here (Notes, 11 October 2025) that much of Epstein’s famous ‘black book’ was just the contacts book of Oxford friends of Ghislaine Maxwell. As their contemporary, I congratulated myself on having been at Cambridge, thus avoiding meeting Ghislaine. So my friend’s message came as a bit of a blow. He rubbed it in: ‘You may be interested to hear that you, yourself, feature no fewer than 40 times.’ His second paragraph, however, kindly explained: the 40 references to me were repetitions or duplicates of one reference, in an email from Peter Mandelson to Epstein on 29 November 2009.

Toby Young

Should I be cancelled for being in the Epstein files?

From our UK edition

I was planning to begin this column by saying how relieved I was to be mentioned in the latest Epstein files. Finally! After all, Jeffrey Epstein’s list of acquaintances reads like a Who’s Who of the global power elite. How embarrassing would it be to have lived in the same city as him from 1995 to 2000, as I did, and not even receive a glancing reference? But I realise this is a subject that shouldn’t be made light of. The revelations about Lord Mandelson are genuinely shocking, even to someone as jaded as me, and raise important questions about what Sir Keir Starmer knew and when.

Peter Jones

The Romans would have known how to deal with Epstein

From our UK edition

To look through Jeffrey Epstein’s curriculum vitae on Google is to be left goggling at how this revolting creature could have gained credence among so many influential people. Roman censors would surely have dealt with him in pretty short order. Their job was to keep an eye on the moral and financial standing of every Roman in the state. For those who did not live up to the standard expected of a citizen, a mark (nota) was put next to his name on the census rolls, resulting in humiliation and loss of political status. Extravagantly flashing one’s wealth about, bad parenting, cruelty, disgusting behaviour, disreputable business practices, cowardice on the battlefield and suchlike would lead to infamia (public ignominy) and expulsion from official positions.

Friday

Matt McDonald

Why I’m in the Epstein Files

“Always knew you were a nonce.” That text, from a coworker in London, is how I learned my name appeared in the latest tranche of the Epstein Files. In the moments prior, I had been sweating profusely – unlike a certain former prince. I can explain. First off, “nonce” is British slang for “pedophile.” More important: at around noon today, the Department of Justice released a series of documents relating to the investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex trafficker and financier. Among the documents: an email I sent in June 2020 to a number of senior figures who worked in the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, in pursuit of comment on a colleague’s story on Prince Andrew and his friendship with Epstein.

matt mcdonald epstein files

Friday

Gavin Mortimer

The French obsession with Epstein

The ongoing revelations about the rich and famous who rubbed shoulders with Jeffrey Epstein are receiving extensive coverage in France. Print and broadcast media have pored over the details of the deceased sex offender and the famous names contained in the Epstein files, from princes to presidents to pop stars. There is a French connection to Epstein in model scout Jean-Luc Brunel, who was alleged to have trafficked girls for the pedophile financier. He was arrested at Charles de Gaulle Airport in 2020 and was found hanged in his prison cell two years later. But overwhelmingly what the French media have described as l’affaire Epstein is an Anglo-Saxon sex scandal. ‘Isn’t a certain tolerance for infidelity what the French have given the western world, along with great wine?

Wednesday

Michael Wolff

Why I corresponded with Jeffrey Epstein

Olivia Nuzzi, the young and talented Trump reporter, committed the apparently cardinal sin of becoming romantically entangled with a subject. And, worse than that, the subject was widely reviled, particularly among journalists: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-Kennedy. And then it turned out –her jilted fiancé, another journalist, was telling all – that there were other politicians she’d been involved with, too. This scandal, which has consumed the journalism world, was good for me because it forced the heaps of opprobrium I was getting from other journalists for my emails with the reviled Jeffrey Epstein off the front page.

Ann Coulter

Will we ever know the truth about Epstein?

Now that Congress has passed a law – not a flimsy resolution, but a law – mandating that the Trump administration release all its files on Jeffrey Epstein, here’s what we know, and what we still need to know. The basic elements of Epstein’s crimes were established back in 2006 by the Palm Beach Police, who began investigating the previous year after a woman reported that he had paid her 14-year-old stepdaughter for a massage. Over the next 13 months, the police gathered sworn statements from dozens of witnesses, including five underage girls who said they’d been paid $200 to $1,000 to engage in sex acts with Epstein. “The more you do, the more you get paid,” one of his assistants told a girl in a phone call recorded by the police.