Political leaders worldwide are grappling with the fallout from the Justice Department’s latest release of documents revealing years of correspondence between Jeffrey Epstein and notable diplomats, bureaucrats, prime ministers and royalty.
Across Europe, rebuke has been swift; tabloids are full of prominent resignations and criminal investigations in the United Kingdom, France, Norway, Sweden and Slovakia. In the United States, the Trump administration has largely deflected calls for accountability, defending both President Donald Trump from allegations of wrongdoing and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick from calls to resign due to his ties to the deceased financier. Both men have denied any wrongdoing.
Here is a country-by-country look at where politicians have — or have not — faced fallout for their personal, political or business relationships with the convicted child sex offender and his associates.
United States
Epstein, who maintained residences in New York City, New Mexico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, had extensive ties to the U.S. political class, including connections to Trump, former President Bill Clinton and officials across multiple presidential administrations.
According to Trump, his friendship with Epstein started and ended long before his first ascension to the Oval Office, beginning in the 1980s and collapsing finally in 2004 — a rupture he has attributed to a dispute over Palm Beach property. Trump has maintained his innocence throughout the DOJ’s investigation into Epstein, and told reporters as recently as Monday that he had “been totally exonerated” after the release of the latest trove of documents.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused the Trump administration of staging a “cover up” over the release of the Epstein files while speaking at the Munich Security Conference earlier this week. Both Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton, whose name appeared in Epstein’s flight logs from 2002 to 2003, are set to testify before the House Oversight Committee at the end of the month regarding the Epstein investigation. Hillary Clinton has denied ever meeting Epstein, and neither Clinton has been accused of wrongdoing by survivors of Epstein’s abuse.
Lutnick, who was neighbors with Epstein in Manhattan, was revealed by the documents and subsequent testimony before Congress to have visited the financier’s private island with his wife and children in 2012, despite previously saying he cut ties with Epstein years earlier. He has denied any wrongdoing, and said he “did not have any relationship” with Epstein, despite having had lunch with him. Lutnick is now resisting bipartisan calls to step down as head of the Commerce Department.
The White House has stood behind Lutnick, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying last week, “Secretary Lutnick remains a very important member of President Trump’s team, and the president fully supports the secretary.”
In the U.S., the few political figures who have faced significant consequences for their association with Epstein are mostly retired from public service.
Among them is Kathy Ruemmler, a lawyer in the Obama White House who went on to serve in a senior role at Goldman Sachs. She announced that she would resign from the firm effective June 30. Documents recently released by the DOJ revealed Ruemmler received gifts from Epstein and exchanged emails with him years after his 2008 guilty plea to two charges of soliciting prostitution, including one involving a minor. Ruemmler has denied any wrongdoing and called Epstein a “monster.” In a statement before her resignation, a Goldman Sachs spokesperson said Ruemmler “regrets ever knowing him.”
Former Democratic Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell stepped down as the honorary chairman of his eponymous institute and had his name and bust removed from a building at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland. Mitchell’s name was also stripped from an academic scholarship program at the U.S.-Ireland Alliance after the extent of his friendship with Epstein was revealed in newly released emails.
Epstein said he and Mitchell were friends during Mitchell’s Senate leadership and the two continued correspondence into the 2010s. Virginia Giuffre accused Mitchell of sexual misconduct — a claim the former congressman has long denied. Giuffre died by suicide in 2025.
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers took a leave of absence from Harvard University, where he earlier served as president, and resigned from Open AI, where he served on the board of directors, and the Center for American Progress, a Washington, D.C., thinktank, where he was a senior fellow. Emails released by the DOJ show Summers’ correspondence with Epstein continued long after his 2008 conviction, and photos from the trove appear to show the two men speaking together in a Harvard classroom.
“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused,” Summers said in a statement. “I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein.”
United Kingdom
British police arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on Thursday on suspicion of misconduct in public office, the most dramatic development yet in a scandal that has engulfed the country’s political leadership. Authorities have been investigating reports that Mountbatten-Windsor, the former prince whose royal titles were stripped by his brother, King Charles III, sent trade reports to Epstein in 2010.
Mountbatten-Windsor has long denied allegations of sexual misconduct made by Giuffre, who said she was forced to have sex with him. Her civil lawsuit against him was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum in 2022.
Queen Elizabeth II stripped her second son of his military affiliations and royal patronages back in 2022. Charles took the further step of stripping him of his royal titles and evicting him from the Royal Lodge, the Crown Estate residence he moved out of earlier this month. The eponymous charity headed by Mountbatten-Windsor’s ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, announced this month it would shut down “for the foreseeable future.” The Guardian reported that six other companies run by Ferguson, who also had a close personal relationship with Epstein, are being shuttered following further revelations about the former Duchess of York in last month’s document trove. The arrest has intensified scrutiny across British public life — and the pressure has not stopped at the palace gates. U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has accepted the resignations of his chief of staff and communications chief over their roles in the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the U.S. Starmer dismissed Mandelson as ambassador in September after documents released by the DOJ revealed a closer relationship with Epstein than Mandelson had previously disclosed. More recent files showed that Epstein sent Mandelson $75,000 across the early 2000s, when he was still a member of Parliament. They also appeared to show Mandelson sharing confidential government information from then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown with Epstein in 2009. Mandelson has since resigned from both the House of Lords and the Labour Party and is now under investigation for misconduct related to his dealing with Epstein. In a statement to CBS News, Mandelson denied knowledge of Epstein’s sex crimes, and in his letter stepping down from the Labour Party, he said he had “no record or recollection” of receiving payments from Epstein. In Norway, former Prime Minister Thorbjorn Jagland is facing “aggravated corruption” charges from national authorities. Jagland, who is also the former secretary general of the Council of Europe, had his diplomatic immunity waived by the organization at the behest of Norwegian police. Documents appear to show Epstein attempting to arrange a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin through Jagland, though there is no evidence in the files that a meeting ever took place. Jagland has denied any criminal wrongdoing. Norwegian diplomats Mona Juul and Terje Rod-Larsen, who are married, are facing a separate corruption investigation after reports arose that Epstein left the couple’s children $10 million in his will. Juul, who resigned as Norway’s ambassador to Jordan and Iraq last week, is facing charges of aggravated corruption. Rod-Larsen, a former diplomat, is charged with contributing to aggravated corruption. An attorney for Juul said she “does not recognise the accusations made against her,” and Rød-Larsen’s lawyer said “there is no basis for criminal liability.” The fallout has even made its way to the Royal Palace in Oslo, where communications between Epstein and Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit are adding to the pressure on the country’s royals at a sensitive moment. (Her son, Marias Borg Hoiby, is currently on trial for 38 counts of rape and assault in a case unrelated to Epstein.) Emails between the crown princess and Epstein appeared to have begun years after his 2008 conviction. Mette-Marit has not been linked to criminal wrongdoing. In a statement, she apologized to “all those I have disappointed. Some of the content in the messages between Epstein and me does not represent the person I want to be.” Joanna Rubinstein, the chairwoman of Sweden for UNHCR, a fundraising group for the UN’s refugee agency, resigned from that position earlier this month after documents revealed that she visited Epstein’s island in 2012. Rubinstein told Swedish newspaper Expressen that she “knew about the verdict at the time” of her visit, referring to Epstein’s 2008 conviction. “What has subsequently emerged about the extent of the abuse is appalling and something I strongly distance myself from,” she added. She has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing. Jack Lang, a member of France’s Socialist party who has served as France’s cultural minister, national education minister, a member of the national assembly and mayor of Blois , appeared with Epstein in a number of photographs among the recently released files. Lang stepped down as president of the Arab World Institute earlier this year. Both he and his daughter, Caroline Lang, are under investigation by French authorities for a form of money laundering following reports about a Virgin Islands-based fund held jointly by Epstein and Caroline Lang. Jack Lang has denied any wrongdoing, saying, “I have nothing to hide.” He told French broadcaster BFMTV that he was unaware of Epstein’s criminal record when he met him. Caroline Lang has also denied any criminal wrongdoing. Miroslav Lajčák, the former president of the U.N. General Assembly, resigned as national security adviser to Slovakia’s prime minister after his communications with Epstein were revealed. Documents released by the DOJ show that he stayed in contact with Epstein until at least 2018, a decade after his child sex conviction and a year before his death in a Manhattan correctional facility. Lajčák has denied any wrongdoing and said he “does not recall and therefore cannot confirm or deny the authenticity of the texts.”
Adam Hudacek is a desk associate for MS NOW covering national politics in Washington, D.C. Recommended
Norway
Sweden
France
Slovakia
Photos in illustration by Victor J. Blue / Bloomberg via Getty Images; Eren Beksac / Anadolu via Getty Images; Rick Friedman / Corbis via Getty Images; Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images;Max Mumby / Indigo via Getty Images (2); William B. Plowman / NBC via Getty Images; Nathan Posner / Anadolu via Getty Images; Chip Somodevilla /Getty Images; Mateusz Wlodarczyk / NurPhoto via Getty Images
