Transatlantic Divide: Epstein Files Take Heads of Europe’s Elite While America’s Hold Firm

The arrest of Britain’s former ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson adds him to a notorious roster of high-ranking officials facing a comeuppance for their roles in the increasingly global Jeffrey Epstein scandal. It also has deepened questions about a widening accountability gap among American and European power structures over the yearslong scandal. Mr. Mandelson’s brief detention and release on bail last month makes him the second high-profile British figure — along with the former Prince Andrew — to face consequences for alleged ties to the late convicted sex offender. The arrests offer a stark contrast to maneuvers by legal authorities in the United States. While European governments have launched criminal investigations, stripped officials of their positions, and forced resignations across multiple countries, America’s response to its own Epstein connections has been notably muted — even as a National Public Radio investigation claims the Justice Department withheld or removed dozens of pages of Epstein files related to allegations that President Trump sexually abused a minor.The disparity has not gone unnoticed by those who study scandal and accountability in American public life. Crisis management expert Eric Dezenhall predicts the American response will evolve as the political landscape demands. “The Epstein materials are being pressure-tested right now, so we’ll see what investigations and subpoenas lead to,” he told The New York Sun. “The first stage of a scandal is an explosion, and it takes a while to see what’s going on beneath the fire and smoke.”Britain’s Political Crisis DeepensFollowing searches of two properties linked to Mr. Mandelson, the longtime Labour Party operative, who once called Epstein his “best pal,” faces allegations he shared market-sensitive government information with the financier during the 2008 financial crisis — an offense that could carry a life sentence. The charging documents do not cite Epstein’s private island or sex-related offenses. Instead, emails released in the Justice Department’s massive document dump appear to show Mr. Mandelson forwarding confidential reports to Epstein within hours of receiving them. In one 2010 exchange, Mr. Mandelson appeared to confirm rumors of a €500 billion eurozone bailout, equivalent to around $635 billion, telling Mr. Epstein the announcement would come that night. In another message, he sent an internal government memo to Mr. Epstein discussing Britain’s struggling economy and policy recommendations to sell off government-held assets.Prime Minister Keir Starmer fired Mr. Mandelson from his ambassadorial post in September 2025 after new disclosures about his relationship to Epstein, but the political fallout has escalated. Mr. Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, resigned earlier this year, taking responsibility for the decision to appoint Mr. Mandelson despite his known ties to Epstein. Two key Starmer aides also stepped down amid the controversy, and opposition parties have called for the prime minister himself to resign. The government has pledged to release documents related to Mr. Mandelson’s appointment in early March, though the ongoing criminal investigation may complicate the timeline.His arrest came just four days after Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor — the former Prince Andrew, stripped of his royal titles — was arrested on his 66th birthday for similar accusations. Thames Valley Police are investigating allegations that the former royal shared confidential government documents with Mr. Epstein during his decade as Britain’s trade envoy, including forwarding official reports on diplomatic visits and seeking Epstein’s views on investment opportunities in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, where British forces were deployed.Europe’s Broader ReckoningBritain is far from alone in facing an Epstein-related governmental crisis. Norway has emerged as one of the hardest-hit countries, with criminal investigations now targeting some of its most prominent figures. The former prime minister, Thorbjørn Jagland, who also served as chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, faces charges of aggravated corruption for allegedly receiving gifts, travel, and loans from Epstein. The investigation centers on emails indicating Jagland planned to visit Epstein’s private island with his family in 2014, years after Epstein’s first conviction.Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit has also been forced to apologize after hundreds of intimate emails between her and Epstein surfaced, spanning 2011 to 2014. Recent polling suggests the Norwegian public may not want her as their future queen. Former ambassador Mona Juul resigned in early February after reports emerged that Epstein left $10 million to her children in a will drawn up shortly before his death.France has opened two new investigations — one into human trafficking and another into financial crimes related to Mr. Epstein. The country’s former culture minister, Jack Lang, resigned in early March as head of the prestigious Arab World Institute after French police searched the institution’s headquarters. In addition, Paris prosecutors announced they are reviewing the massive document release to identify potential victims and perpetrators, and have appointed five magistrates to ensure “no information is missed.” Slovakia’s national security adviser, Miroslav Lajčák, also stepped down over text messages discussing women with Epstein, telling Slovak public radio that reading the messages today makes him feel like “an idiot.” Latvia and Lithuania, too, have launched human trafficking investigations linked to names appearing in the files.America’s Differing ApproachPresident Trump appeared in the released files thousands of times and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick faced bipartisan calls to resign over revelations he maintained contact with Epstein until at least 2018 and visited Epstein’s private island in 2012. Yet both men hold firmly to the position that they have done nothing wrong. So far, they have withstood any fallout. The contrast to the European response could hardly be starker. The disparate responses reflect not only structural differences, but also political calculations, according to Mr. Dezenhall, who founded one of the first crisis management firms in Washington and worked in the Reagan White House.“Epstein is a ‘broken arrow’ event, and nobody knows where this nuke will blow and where the fallout will land,” Mr. Dezenhall said. “A lot of Democrats thought Epstein would ensnare Trump. So far, not only have they been wrong, but Epstein has banged up liberal elites worse than conservatives.” European prosecutors, on the other hand, face different political pressures. “I’m not sure there’s that same fear among European prosecutors because Europe isn’t voting for U.S. politicians, who are thoroughly tribal now,” Mr. Dezenhall said. The Trump administration released a memo in July stating no evidence warrants investigating “uncharged third parties” related to Epstein. The cascade of criminal investigations now unfolding in Europe based on the same documents tell a different story, and recent NPR revelations that the Justice Department withheld files related to Mr. Trump compound the fractures. The NPR investigation found at least 50 pages missing from the public database, including FBI interviews and notes from conversations with a woman who accused Mr. Trump of sexual abuse when she was a minor around 1983. According to the files, the FBI interviewed this accuser four times. One internal FBI report from July 2025 detailed the woman’s allegation that Epstein introduced her to Mr. Trump, “who subsequently forced her head down to his exposed penis, which she subsequently bit. In response, Mr. Trump punched her in the head and kicked her out.”White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told NPR that Mr. Trump “has been totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein.” She added that the president “has done more for Epstein’s victims than anyone before him.” Mr. Lutnick admitted under Senate questioning that he visited Mr. Epstein’s island for lunch with his wife and children in December 2012 — contradicting his previous claim that he cut all contact after a 2005 meeting. Documents show the two were business partners in at least one investment as recently as 2014. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declared that “President Trump fully supports the secretary.” House Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed calls for Mr. Lutnick’s resignation as “absurd.”Attorney General Pam Bondi, who initially suggested major revelations were forthcoming, has also since adopted the administration’s time-to-move-on posture, even as she announced selective investigations targeting Democrats like President Clinton.A handful of Americans in corporate and academic positions, where public accountability standards are theoretically lower than government posts, have faced consequences. Larry Summers stepped down from his teaching position at Harvard, Brad Karp resigned as chair of the Paul Weiss law firm, and Kathryn Ruemmler announced she will resign as Goldman Sachs’ top lawyer. The Accountability GapThe disparity among responses reflects more than structural differences between parliamentary and presidential systems, Mr. Dezenhall argues. “There is also a huge gap between what supposedly happened and what actually happened,” he said. “The allegations are so fantastic, but when you drill down for the facts, among the only things we know for sure is that Epstein himself was a sex criminal, but plenty of the other players had dealings with him, but may not have had anything to do with the sex crimes.”Mr. Dezenhall described the American response as driven by competing impulses. “Americans have a long history of using stoning in the town square to correct societal wrongs, real and imagined,” he said, adding that America’s “promiscuous litigation culture” enables public figures to “use the media to tarnish someone, then sue, and prosecute them once the jury pool is tainted.”“Vilify. Politicize. Sue. Prosecute. That’s the order,” Mr. Dezenhall said. However, some legal experts note that parliamentary systems do create inherent accountability pressures absent in the American system. Chief ethics lawyer to President George W. Bush, Richard Painter, told NPR that in parliamentary democracies, “the legislature calls the shots and members of the legislature are vulnerable to be voted down in the next election. There’s more accountability to the public.”Representative Thomas Massie, who co-authored the Epstein Files Transparency Act, pointed to this structural difference when calling for Lutnick’s resignation.“If this were Great Britain, he’d already be gone,” Mr. Massie said, noting that British officials have been “toppled for maintaining friendly relationships with Epstein after he became a convicted sex offender.”Democratic Representative Ro Khanna echoed the point more bluntly: “This is bringing down the British government. It may bring down the monarchy. It’s bringing down elites. What are we doing here in the United States to stand up to the Epstein class?”The calculus for American prosecutors, Mr. Dezenhall suggests, differs fundamentally from their European counterparts.“Any sane person knows that Trump is untouchable,” Mr. Dezenhall said. “His power is essentially absolute, and it’s better to play possum dead on the side of the road than gin up prosecutions that will interest him.”He suggested that prosecutions in the U.S. will happen eventually “once people have a better sense of what exactly they’ll be prosecuting,” he adds. “If you’re a prosecutor, are you going to risk your reputation to indict somebody who went to some parties he shouldn’t have? Outrage outpaces culpability.”

Transatlantic Divide: Epstein Files Take Heads of Europe’s Elite While America’s Hold Firm

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