The Justice Department’s release of millions of files relating to its investigation into the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has shaken the upper echelons of power across the globe, resulting in high-profile firings and resignations in the U.S. and abroad and a number of active criminal investigations overseas.
Here’s a look at those who’ve been affected to date by the information released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law that shone a light on the surprisingly wide network of rich and powerful people who interacted with the politically connected convicted sex offender, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on trafficking charges.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor
The former Prince Andrew was officially stripped of his royal titles in late 2025 as a result of his ties with Epstein, given new scrutiny after the House Oversight Committee released a trove of files last year. His reputational collapse plunged to lower depths on Thursday, when authorities said he was arrested on suspicion of misconduct while in office.
The arrest came after the Thames Valley Police said this month that the department was looking into a claim that the then-prince had shared confidential documents with Epstein while he was serving as U.K. trade envoy in 2010.
The claim emerged from an email chain in the latest Epstein files release. Mountbatten-Windsor appears to have forwarded Epstein “visit reports for Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shenzhen” in relation to a trip he’d made to Southeast Asia.
Trade envoys are typically barred from sharing sensitive or commercial documents under confidentiality rules.
Mountbatten-Windsor has denied wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, but has not commented on the latest batch of files or his arrest. He was released approximately 11 hours after being attested, meaning he has been neither charged nor cleared of wrongdoing, the Thames Valley Police said in a statement.
In a statement Thursday, King Charles III vowed to cooperate with any investigation and said that “the law must take its course.”
Peter Mandelson, former British ambassador to the U.S.
Peter Mandelson was fired as British ambassador to the U.S. last year after documents released by the House Oversight Committee showed he had a much closer relationship with Epstein than was previously known.
Documents released by the Justice Department in January, however, touched off an investigation by London’s Metropolitan Police “for misconduct in public office offences.” As was the case with the former prince, the documents showed exchanges he had with Epstein where he appeared to share sensitive government information.
In one 2010 exchange, while Mandelson was business secretary, he notified Epstein in advance that Prime Minister Gordon Brown was going to resign following his loss in the general election, writing, “finally got him to go today.”
Mandelson stepped down from the governing Labour Party on Feb. 1 and as a member of the House of Lords on Feb. 3. On Feb. 6, his former lobbying company announced it had severed all ties with him.
Mandelson has denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein. In an interview that The Times of London published Feb. 2, Mandelson said the new release showed a “handful of misguided historical emails, which I deeply regret sending” and compared Epstein to “muck that you can’t get off your shoe.”
Thorbjørn Jagland, former prime minister of Norway
Thorbjørn Jagland, who was prime minister of Norway in the 1990s and went on to head the Nobel Committee and the Council of Europe, was charged last week with “aggravated corruption” following searches of his home in Norway in connection with Epstein file disclosures.
Emails in the files show Jagland taking repeated trips to Epstein’s properties, including stays at his island. Epstein paid for Jagland and his family’s travel there in 2014, according to one of the emails.
After the emails became public, Jagland was stripped of his diplomatic immunity and three of his properties were searched by Norwegian authorities.
“As a consequence of the search, Jagland has now been charged with gross corruption,” the police said in a statement.
Jagland has denied any wrongdoing. He told the Norwegian paper Aftenposten he is “very glad that the matter is being clarified” and plans to fully cooperate with the authorities.
Thomas Pritzker, chairman of Hyatt Hotels
Billionaire Tom Pritzker announced this week he was stepping down from his role as executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels Corp. because of revelations in the files about his long associations with Epstein and Epstein’s co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence on sex trafficking charges.
Emails released by the Justice Department show Pritzker and Epstein socializing for years after his 2008 conviction.
“Good stewardship also means protecting Hyatt, particularly in the context of my association with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell which I deeply regret. I exercised terrible judgment in maintaining contact with them, and there is no excuse for failing to distance myself sooner,” Pritzker said in a statement announcing his resignation as chair, a post he’d held since 2004.
“I condemn the actions and the harm caused by Epstein and Maxwell and I feel deep sorrow for the pain they inflicted on their victims.”
He has not been accused of any wrongdoing by law enforcement.
Kathy Ruemmler, former chief legal officer at Goldman Sachs
Kathy Ruemmler, a former White House counsel in the Obama administration, announced last week she was resigning from her job as chief legal officer at Goldman Sachs after newly released emails showed she and Epstein had had a friendly relationship.
Ruemmler told the Financial Times, “I made the determination that the media attention on me, relating to my prior work as a defense attorney, was becoming a distraction.”
Ruemmler’s name appears in the files in scores of email exchanges with Epstein and his assistant, some of which show her offering public relations and legal advice and others showing he bought her lavish gifts, including a Fendi bag and an Apple Watch.
“I adore him. It’s like having another older brother!” Ruemmler told Epstein’s assistant in a 2015 email.
Ruemmler said in a statement this month that “I got to know him as a lawyer and that was the foundation of my relationship with him. One of his clients became my client too, we regularly worked together, and he asked me for advice as many people do.”
“I had no knowledge of any ongoing criminal conduct on his part, and I did not know him as the monster he has been revealed to be,” the statement said. She has not been accused by law enforcement of any wrongdoing.
Brad Karp, former chairman of Paul, Weiss
Brad Karp, who was head of the prestigious law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, announced on Feb. 4 that he was stepping down as chairman in the wake of newly disclosed emails between him and Epstein.
“Recent reporting has created a distraction and has placed a focus on me that is not in the best interests of the firm,” Karp said in a statement released by the firm.
A separate statement from the firm indicated he wasn’t going far. “Mr. Karp will continue to focus his full-time attention to client service at the firm,” the statement said.
Documents posted by the Justice Department’s website show dozens of email exchanges between Karp and Epstein or Karp and Epstein’s assistant spanning multiple years, including 2015 through 2019.
In one 2015 email, he thanked Epstein for “an evening I’ll never forget.”
“It was truly ‘once in a lifetime’ in every way,” Karp wrote, calling Epstein “an extraordinary host.” More details about the event were not known.
Karp has not been accused of any wrongdoing by law enforcement. His firm told The New York Times this month, “Mr. Karp attended two group dinners in New York City and had a small number of social interactions by email, all of which he regrets.”
George J. Mitchell, former U.S. senator
George J. Mitchell, the 92-year-old former Democratic senator from Maine and envoy to Northern Ireland during the Clinton administration, resigned from his position as honorary chair of the Mitchell Institute this month.
The institute, which provides scholarships for college students in Maine, announced its founder’s resignation after his name appeared over 300 times in the files. Many of the mentions showed Epstein trying to meet with him, and it’s unclear if the meetings happened.
The file also includes an interview the FBI conducted with a woman in 2020 who said Epstein had trafficked her to Mitchell in the early 2000s.
A spokesman for Mitchell could not be reached, but one told The Irish Times this month that he never had “any contact of any kind” with “any underage women,” and “at no time did Senator Mitchell observe, suspect, or have any knowledge of Epstein engaging in illegal or inappropriate conduct with underage women.”
“He learned of Epstein’s criminal activity only through media reports related to Epstein’s Florida prosecution,” the statement said, and “to the best of Senator Mitchell’s recollection, during the 12-year period between Epstein’s conviction and his death, members of Epstein’s staff extended a small number of invitations to the Senator, all of which he declined or deflected.”
The senator “profoundly regrets ever having known Jeffrey Epstein and condemns, without reservation, the horrific harm Epstein inflicted on so many women,” the statement said.
The Mitchell Institute statement said it had accepted Mitchell’s resignation, adding: “We also agree that this is an appropriate time to initiate a thoughtful, responsible process to consider a potential name change.”
Authorities have not accused him of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem
Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, an influential Emirati businessman, was replaced as chair of one of the world’s largest logistics companies days after his name appeared in the files.
Some of the emails between the sultan and Epstein referenced porn, sexual massages and escorts. Epstein wrote him in 2009 saying, “I loved the torture video.” The email included no other context and it’s unclear what video he was referring to.
A representative for bin Sulayem’s company, DP World, did not respond to a request for comment from NBC News last week. The statement announcing the sultan’s replacement did not mention Epstein or the sultan himself. Authorities have not accused bin Sulayem of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
Casey Wasserman, CEO of Wasserman Media Group
Hollywood mogul Casey Wasserman last week informed staff members at his talent agency that he was putting the company up for sale in the wake of backlash from his previous correspondence with Epstein co-conspirator Maxwell.
In a memo to Wasserman Media Group staff obtained by NBC News, Wasserman wrote he believed he had “become a distraction” at the firm, which represents high-profile musicians and athletes.
“I’m deeply sorry that my past personal mistakes have caused you so much discomfort,” Wasserman wrote.
Wasserman exchanged emails with Maxwell back in 2003, saying in one, “I think of you all the time.”
Singer Chappell Roan announced she was cutting ties with the firm after the emails were released, as did former U.S. women’s soccer star Abby Wambach.
Wasserman has said the correspondence with Maxwell “took place over two decades ago, long before her horrific crimes came to light,” and he did not have a “personal or business relationship” with Epstein.
Authorities have not accused him of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein. The LA28 Olympic Committee, which Wasserman leads as chairman, has dismissed calls for his resignation.
Peter Attia, wellness influencer
Wellness influencer Peter Attia lost two positions after it emerged that he’d been in regular correspondence with Epstein, sometimes discussing Epstein’s medical results with him and sometimes discussing women in crude terms.
“The biggest problem with becoming friends with you? The life you lead is so outrageous, and yet I can’t tell a soul,” Attia wrote in one June 2015 email.
After the messages became public, Attia parted ways with a company called AG1, where he had been a scientific adviser, and another company called David, where he had been chief science officer.
Attia acknowledged his relationship with Epstein in a lengthy post on X but asserted he wasn’t involved in criminal activity. “I apologize and regret putting myself in a position where emails, some of them embarrassing, tasteless, and indefensible, are now public, and that is on me,” he wrote on Feb. 2.
Authorities have not accused him of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
Sarah Ferguson, former duchess
Sarah Ferguson, Mountbatten-Windsor’s ex-wife, announced she was shutting down her U.K.-based charity Sarah’s Trust this month after emails shed more light on her already well-known ties to Epstein.
“Our chair Sarah Ferguson and the board of trustees have agreed that with regret the charity will shortly close for the foreseeable future,” a spokesperson for the trust said this month.
Previous releases had shown that Ferguson had taken money from Epstein because she said she was in financial distress, and that she also sent him an apology for having distanced herself from him in a 2011 interview.
The newly released emails show her gushing over Epstein, including one 2010 email where she told him, “Just marry me.”
A spokesperson for Ferguson said last year she was “taken in“ by Epstein’s lies. “As soon as she was aware of the extent of the allegations against him, she not only cut off contact but condemned him publicly,” the spokesperson said.
She has not been accused by law enforcement of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
Mona Juul, Norway’s former ambassador to Jordan and Iraq
Mona Juul resigned as Norway’s ambassador to Jordan and Iraq this month after the DOJ files revealed she and her husband, politician Terje Rød-Larsen, had more extensive ties to Epstein than previously known.
“This is the right and necessary decision. It follows discussions with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs this week. Juul’s contact with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein revealed a serious lapse in judgment. The situation makes it difficult to restore the trust that the role requires,” said Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide.
Norway’s National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime is investigating the couple on allegations of corruption, The Associated Press reported. Rød-Larsen is a former president of the International Peace Institute, “and his contacts with Epstein are extensive and deeply troubling. There is no doubt that Rød-Larsen exhibited poor judgment in this matter,” Eide said.
Juul said in a statement to Norwegian news agency NTB last week that it had been “imprecise” to describe her contact with Epstein as minimal, but that the contact originated via her husband’s relationship with Epstein and she had no independent social or professional relationship with him. A lawyer for Rød-Larsen told The Guardian his client is “confident” he would be cleared of wrongdoing.
Miroslav Lajčák, former Slovakia national security adviser
Miroslav Lajčák, the national security adviser to Slovakia’s prime minister, resigned after his relationship with Epstein was exposed through the release of the files. Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico said in a Facebook video that he accepted Lajčák’s resignation.
Documents show Lajčák and Epstein texting each other in 2018, with Epstein talking about women who were with him. “Why don’t you invite me for these games?” he asked Epstein.
In an interview with Euronews, Lajčák said, “When I read those messages today, I feel like a fool. It was a private conversation. Let’s be honest, who would be happy if the whole nation were reading their messages? At the very least, I exercised poor judgment.”
Authorities have not accused Lajčák of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
Jack Lang, former French culture minister
Former French Culture Minister Jack Lang is under investigation in France and resigned this month as president of the Arab World Institute because of his ties to Epstein.
Lang, 86, is being investigated by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office in connection with suspected “laundering of the proceeds of tax evasion” following reporting from French investigative outlet Mediapart, which cited DOJ records, about a company set up jointly by Epstein and Lang’s daughter in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Caroline Lang told France TV that she was friendly with Epstein and knew him as an art collector. She said Epstein suggested she start a fund to sponsor young artists and that his associates set up the offshore company, Prytanee. She said she was aware of his 2008 arrest but that he told her he regretted it and she believed he had moved past it. She said she never saw him behave improperly.
“In 2019, when Jeffrey Epstein was arrested, and I learned who he really was, of course, I was beside myself,” she said. “I was horrified.”
She resigned as president of the Independent Production Union this month.
“The accusations leveled against me are baseless, and I will demonstrate this, beyond the sound and fury of the media and digital courts,” Jack Lang said in a Feb. 7 statement on X.
Mohamed Waheed Hassan, former president of the Maldives
Mohamed Waheed Hassan, a former president of the Maldives, resigned his post as special envoy to the current president after the latest files release showed him trading emails and seeking financial guidance from Epstein numerous times between 2012 and 2015.
Hassan was the Maldives’ president in 2012 and 2013.
Days after the additional emails were released, showing Hassan was mentioned over 600 times, the current president’s office announced Hassan would no longer serve as a special envoy to the president.
“Mohamed Waheed Hassan has tendered his resignation today. President Dr Mohamed Muizzu received Dr Waheed’s letter of resignation earlier this morning,” the president’s office said in a Feb. 3 statement.
In an email to NBC News, Hassan said he’d been unaware of Epstein’s 2008 conviction. “Though I only ever sought advice on professional and finance matters, I regret not only any association, but any legitimacy I may have inadvertently afforded him through my engagement with him,” he wrote, adding: “I never witnessed any illicit activity and was only ever cordial with him in the context of a professional relationship.”
“During my time with UNICEF, in Yemen and Afghanistan especially, I operated in active war zones, and knowingly engaged with tribal leaders in service of my respective mandates,” he said. “I would have never guessed it would be a purported New York City financier that I would be most ashamed of engaging with.”
He has not been accused of any wrongdoing by law enforcement.
David A. Ross, School of Visual Arts
David A. Ross resigned from his post as chair of the MFA art practice program at New York’s School of Visual Arts after the release of emails showing him offering his support to Epstein for a number of years.
“It is depressing to see how you are once again being dragged through the mud. I’m still proud to call you a friend,” Ross emailed him in 2015.
In 2009, weeks after Epstein was released from jail on charges he solicited a minor for prostitution, he emailed Ross to say, “I might want to fund an exhibition entitled statutory.. girls and boys ages 14 — 25..where they look nothing like their true ages. Juvenile mug shots. ,photo shop, make up. some people go to prison because they can’t tell true age. controversial . fun.”
Ross responded, “You are incredible.”
In a statement this month, the school said it was “aware of the correspondence” and “accepted Mr. Ross’s resignation on February 3.”
Ross said in an email to ArtNews that Epstein “told me that he had been the subject of a political frame-up because of his support of former President Clinton. At the time, I believed he was telling me the truth.”
“When the reality of his crimes became clear, I was mortified and remain ashamed that I fell for his lies. Like many he supported with arts and education patronage, I profoundly regret that I was taken in by his story. I continue to be appalled by his crimes and remain deeply concerned for its many victims,” he said.
Authorities have not accused Ross of any wrongdoing.
Larry Summers, former Harvard University president
Larry Summers, the former president of Harvard University who served as treasury secretary during the Clinton administration and head of the National Economic Council in the Obama administration, was revealed in an earlier release of documents from the House Oversight Committee to have had closer ties to Epstein than previously known.
The documents, which were released in November, showed years of emails between Summers and Epstein, including the day before Epstein’s 2019 arrest on sex trafficking charges.
In one March 2019 exchange, Summers and Epstein had a conversation about a woman Summers was interested in.
“I said what are you up to. She said ‘I’m busy’. I said awfully coy u are,” Summers wrote to Epstein. He responded, “shes smart. making you pay for past errors.”
Summers announced in November that he would step away from his teaching duties at Harvard while the school investigated, and he stepped down from the board of directors at OpenAI. He also resigned his membership with the American Economic Association, which hit him with a lifetime ban.
Trump in November directed the Justice Department to investigate Summers after the emails’ release. The status of that investigation is unclear.
Summers has denied any wrongdoing and said he feels regret for “my past associations with Mr. Epstein.”
Jes Staley, former CEO of Barclays
The newly released emails include thousands of mentions of Jes Staley, who stepped down as Barclays CEO in November 2021 after the release of preliminary results of a regulatory probe in the U.K. into his relationship with Epstein.
The probe began after regulators received emails from JPMorgan, where Staley had previously worked, showing that he and Epstein were much closer than Staley had claimed, according to The Financial Times.
JPMorgan sued Staley in 2023, alleging he’d “thwarted” the bank’s efforts to cut ties with Epstein. Staley argued the bank was using him as a “public relations shield” in lawsuits it was facing for allegedly enabling Epstein’s trafficking.
JPMorgan settled one of the suits in September 2023, agreeing to pay $75 million to the U.S. Virgin Islands for victim assistance while not admitting liability. The bank said at the same time it had reached a confidential agreement with Staley. Staley has denied wrongdoing and said he regrets his association with Epstein.