Max Colchester

In the UK, the Epstein scandal has morphed from something which focused on potential bad behaviour by individuals, which was chronicled in the tabloids, into what could now morph into a police investigation.

On Friday, documents were made public which appear to show that a former senior member of the British government, Lord Peter Mandelson, was falsely

forwarding internal information from Downing Street to Epstein directly, which raises the question of whether Epstein was able to trade on that non-public information.

The British police have said they are looking at the emails in question and will determine whether to launch a fully-fledged investigation.

And there's a key ramification from this, which is now British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is saying that Peter Mandelson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor should give evidence

to the House Oversight Committee, and the Prime Minister has suggested that Lord Mandelson should quit Britain's House of Lords.

So we're talking about real-world ramifications now from this scandal.

Trump received a text message from the prime minister of Norway saying, let's hold on, let's have a chat and talk this through ostensibly.

And Trump replies with this amazing message, essentially saying that because he was snubbed by the Nobel Prize Committee, he's no longer committed to the pursuit of peace and that he should take control of Greenland.

We've seen a significant escalation in the rhetoric around Greenland.

We've seen him come out and say, America needs Greenland for national security reasons, and anyone who stands in my way of getting it will be punished.

This is potentially a huge deal, which could see a reshaping of the transatlantic relationship between Europe and America.

But it was in the wake of that action in Venezuela that everyone said, well, if you're willing to take that kind of action in Venezuela, what would you do about Greenland?

And he then came back and said, well, actually, yeah, we need Greenland.

And so now suddenly this was a U.S.

leader who was willing to take those kinds of risks.

What Trump was saying in his argument for controlling Greenland is that essentially the EU and Denmark in particular doesn't have the financial muscle to actually defend Greenland or protect the Arctic.

So that's the premise of this.

And it wasn't a very big contingent.

It was a few dozen soldiers from a handful of European countries.