The United Nations has entered the Epstein case in unprecedented fashion, releasing an official statement that described the network surrounding Jeffrey Epstein as a possible global criminal enterprise and suggested the allegations may meet the legal threshold for crimes against humanity. The statement, issued on April 16th, came from UN human rights experts, including a special rapporteur on trafficking in persons and a working group focused on discrimination against women and girls. The UN experts said there is disturbing and credible evidence of systematic sexual abuse and trafficking of women and girls involving senior politicians, diplomats, global business leaders, and leading academics across multiple countries over decades. They listed crimes they believe took place, including sexual slavery, reproductive violence, enforced disappearance, torture, and femicide.
They also directly rejected any suggestion that it is time to move on from the Epstein files, calling such a stance unacceptable. The statement carries particular weight because the US Department of Justice has already said publicly that it is done releasing files. The UN is now calling on the US to release everything and on other countries to investigate any officials named in the files within their own borders. So far, Washington has remained silent in response to the international body’s direct challenge.
Meanwhile, the fallout in the UK has reached the highest levels of government. Peter Mandelson, appointed UK Ambassador to the United States by Prime Minister Keir Starmer in 2024, was arrested in February 2026 for allegedly passing government secrets to Epstein. Mandelson was a known friend of Epstein, and it has now emerged that the security vetting agency recommended denying him clearance before his appointment, specifically because of his Epstein ties. Foreign Office officials overruled that recommendation and approved him anyway.
On April 17th, that story became public. Starmer responded by saying he only found out about the failed vetting last week, a claim opposition leaders called completely preposterous. Documents show Starmer was warned of reputational risks before he ever made the appointment. Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said plainly that Starmer is either lying or grossly incompetent.
On April 18th, the top civil servant inside the Foreign Office, Olly Robbins, resigned or was pushed out, with Downing Street briefing the media that Robbins had failed to keep Starmer informed about the vetting issues. But when Robbins testified before Parliament on April 21st, he painted a very different picture. He described an atmosphere of pressure from Starmer’s office to rush Mandelson’s appointment through, with a very strong expectation that Mandelson needed to be in Washington quickly for Trump’s inauguration. He described Downing Street’s attitude toward the vetting concerns as generally dismissive.
That same day, Starmer stood up in Parliament and said the words, I should not have appointed Peter Mandelson. He took responsibility for the decision and apologized to the victims of Epstein, saying they were clearly failed by his decision. But he refused to resign. The stakes are concrete and immediate.
Local elections are scheduled for May 7th, and Labour is expected to take heavy losses. If the results are bad enough, Starmer’s own MPs could force him out because of this single Epstein-connected appointment. In the United States, the person who was legally required to appear before Congress to answer questions about the Epstein cover-up did not show up. Congress subpoenaed Pam Bondi for a sworn deposition on April 14th.
The subpoena was bipartisan, with both Republicans and Democrats voting for it. The purpose was to get answers about why half of the Epstein files are still not public and why victims’ names ended up in documents that were supposed to be redacted, putting survivors in danger. When April 14th arrived, Bondi did not appear. The DOJ argued that because Bondi was no longer Attorney General, the subpoena was no longer valid.
But the subpoena was for Pam Bondi the person, not for the office. Ranking member Robert Garcia was clear on this point, saying Bondi is legally required to appear whether she holds the position or not. Both Democrats and Republicans on the committee confirmed they are now contacting Bondi’s personal lawyer to schedule the deposition, not cancel it. A contempt charge is coming, and even some Republican members are on board with enforcing it.
Republican Nancy Mace and another member sent a letter to the committee chair weeks earlier saying the removal of Bondi as Attorney General does not diminish the committee’s legitimate oversight interest in seeking her sworn testimony. The contempt charge matters because even if Trump’s DOJ refuses to prosecute her now, the next administration’s DOJ will not have that same protection. Of all the properties Epstein owned, the one that received almost zero federal attention in 2019 was also the biggest: Zorro Ranch. The property spans 7,500 acres in New Mexico, plus another 1,200 acres he leased from the state.
Epstein bought it in 1993 from the state’s own former governor, off a back road between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. When Epstein was arrested in 2019, federal investigators went through his other properties but did not go to Zorro Ranch. Their stated reason was that they had no probable cause to search it. At the time, the New Mexico Attorney General, Hector Balderas, had opened his own state investigation.
But federal prosecutors in New York told him to stop talking to witnesses, saying they did not want duplicate testimony that could hurt their case. Balderas said that seemed reasonable at first. The problem was what came after. The federal prosecutors went completely dark.
They stopped sharing information and never gave New Mexico the evidence that would have helped bring state charges. Balderas only found out how deep the Zorro Ranch story went when the DOJ started releasing files in 2026, years later. Every lawmaker and investigator who has looked at this has the same question: you searched his house in Manhattan, you searched Florida, you searched the island, but not the biggest property he owned. Why?
There is also an anonymous tip reported to the FBI in 2019 claiming two women may have been buried on the property. The radio host who filed that tip said he never heard from the FBI again after reporting it. The FBI and DOJ have declined to comment on the tip. In March 2026, years after the fact, the current New Mexico Attorney General finally searched the property.
The new owner, a Texas real estate developer who bought it in 2023, cooperated voluntarily. No physical evidence of criminal activity has been reported found, but investigators say they still have not received the full investigative file back from the federal government, files that New Mexico handed over to the feds years ago and has been trying to get back ever since. The former governor who sold Epstein the ranch, Bill Richardson, is referenced hundreds of times in the Epstein files. Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers, says Epstein trafficked her to Richardson.
Richardson denied it completely before his death in 2023. The unredacted files that could answer that question are still sitting with the DOJ, not shared with New Mexico and not shared with the public. Two additional developments emerged this week. On April 21st, the Gates Foundation announced it had opened an external review earlier this year into its connections to Epstein.
The DOJ’s file release in January 2026 showed direct communication between Epstein and Gates Foundation staff. Foundation CEO Mark Suzman said the review was opened to look at past engagement with Epstein and to assess the foundation’s current policies for vetting new partners. Also, multiple Epstein victims have come forward to say the Justice Department failed to properly investigate their claims against other men, not just Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, but other powerful men. Survivors named names and gave accounts, yet no criminal charges have come from any of those allegations.
The question investigators, lawmakers, and the victims themselves are now asking out loud is whether the DOJ deliberately kept the investigation small, drawing a box around Epstein and Maxwell and deciding the line stopped there, even when survivors were pointing beyond it. Three million pages of evidence have produced zero new arrests.
