The Trump administration is scrambling to block British investigators’ timely and full access to the unredacted Jeffrey Epstein files, which could thwart potential prosecutions in the U.K, including against former Prince Andrew.
Britain’s Metropolitan Police have sent a formal request to the Department of Justice, after the DOJ insisted it do so to obtain the original, unredacted documents. The formal request was made after earlier U.K. attempts to obtain the documents were ignored, The Guardian reported.
Any resolution of the formal request process could take a long time, and it’s not immediately clear what other conditions Trump officials may set before taking any action.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
U.K. police are turning up the heat on both Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who was stripped of his royal titles in the wake of the Epstein scandal, and on the former British ambassador to the U.S., Peter Mandelson.
Thames Valley Police are currently investigating Mountbatten-Windsor over allegations of possible misconduct in public office concerning claims that sensitive information may have been given to Epstein while the former prince was a trade envoy for his country. The Met has launched a similar investigation into Mandelson’s activities when he was a Cabinet minister.
The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) has also reported that it’s investigating Mandelson during his time as an EU trade commissioner.
The American Justice Department’s full documents are considered critical to a successful prosecution of the two men, and others, as British investigators identify and interview key witnesses.
“It is difficult to make anything stick without those documents. The U.S. could have handed them over without making [British police] go down the formal route,” a source told The Guardian.
Other British police forces are probing other aspects of Epstein’s activities in the U.K., including claims that he housed some of his victims in London apartments. Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in 2025 at the age of 41, said she had been trafficked by Epstein in London.
Other police departments are investigating whether the disgraced financier used various local airports in the U.K. to traffic girls and women.
The Epstein files are not fading away. The inspector general of the Justice Department has launched an investigation into the Trump administration’s failure to release all the files required by law.
