☕️ JAGGED LAND ☙ Tuesday, February 24, 2026 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

CBS doctor Peter Attia quits over Epstein emails; Norway's ex-PM Jagland hospitalized after failed suicide; UK's Peter Mandelson arrested. Why the cascade may be heading for America next, and more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Tuesday! I’m airport/airplane blogging ✈️ this morning. There’s a lot happening in Epstein world, so today’s roundup brings you abreast of the latest: The Epstein files keep delivering, and today’s haul is a three-country special. CBS’s brand-new longevity expert resigned after 1,700 mentions in pedophile files (his ‘low carb’ dietary advice took an unexpected turn). Norway’s former Prime Minister tried to delete himself after corruption charges. And the UK’s ‘Prince of Darkness’ got a midnight ride to the police station. Plus: why the British arrests may be building a permission structure for American prosecutions — and the legal buffet waiting for US prosecutors when they’re ready to eat.

⛑️ C&C ARMY POST ⛑️

I would like to thank Mike Rowe and his terrific podcasting team for their abundant hospitality yesterday. For one thing, I was provided coffee immediately upon arrival. So. In case you aren’t familiar, Mike starred in the long-running series Dirty Jobs, narrated Deadliest Catch, and has a terrific podcast called The Way I Heard It. As it happens, he’s also a long-time C&C reader from way back, in the pandemic period.

I will, of course, let you know when the podcast goes live.

I’d also like to thank the scrappy band of C&C fans who came down from the mountains for dinner with Michelle and me on Saturday night. California’s conservative resistance is alive and well. I wish them the best possible luck— they’ll need it.

🌍🇺🇸 ESSENTIAL NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🇺🇸🌍

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The Epstein files claimed more scalps yesterday, bringing the weekly total to three and shifting the needle one more notch into the red range labeled “historical reckoning.” First, CBS’s fresh “longevity expert,” bio-hacker, and Stanford/Johns Hopkins-trained surgeon, Peter Attia, resigned his brand-new contributor gig— just three weeks after the DOJ dumped hundreds of his emails with Jeffrey Epstein. Attia’s name appeared over 1,700 times. The New York Times reported, “Peter Attia Leaves CBS News Amid Epstein Files Fallout.”

In one especially gross 2016 exchange, Attia, 52, a physician who built his brand telling other people what to put in their bodies, advised Jeffrey Epstein that certain intimate parts of the female anatomy qualify as “low carb.” (“P—y is, indeed, low carb.”) Years and years after Epstein’s conviction.

Peter’s book is titled Outlive. Maybe he’ll write a sequel called Outliving Your Reputation.

In Outlive, Dr. Attia described an “embarrassing” episode when he’d stayed in New York City to do some very “important work” even though his 1-month-old son Aryton had suffered cardiac arrest and was rushed to the ICU. For four days, his wife begged him to come home. Now, the released emails revealed that the “important work” was frolicking with his secret buddy Jeffrey while his newborn son and wife were weeping in the intensive care unit.

In another widely shared line he probably now intensely regrets, Peter gushed, “You (know) the biggest problem becoming friends with you? The life you lead is so outrageous, and yet I can’t tell a soul…”

Why not? What did Peter know that he couldn’t tell even a soul?

Unsurprisingly, during the pandemic, Peter was pro-jab (but, in fairness, anti-mandate):

Peter doesn’t hold the record, but seventeen hundred mentions is a lot. Most people’s names appear in pedophile case files around zero times, which is considered by most medical professionals —apart from Dr. Attia— to be the healthiest amount. Bio-hack that.

But Attia’s resignation from his new job at CBS was only a rain shower compared to the Epstein blizzard in Norway and the tidal wave of shame sweeping the UK.

🀄 This morning, Indian Firstpost ran a dramatic story headlined, “Ex-Norwegian PM Jagland attempted suicide amid Epstein-linked corruption probe.”

Thorbjørn Jagland is as close to royalty as it gets without blessed blue blood. He is a long‑time Labour leader, ex–Norwegian PM and foreign minister, a former parliamentary speaker, a decade‑long Secretary General of the Council of Europe, and the former chair of the Nobel Peace Prize committee.

Media agreed to withhold the story, but it leaked out. Last week, facing Epstein-related public corruption charges, Jagland tried to delete himself. It didn’t work, and as of today, he is “reportedly hospitalised following an alleged suicide attempt.” No details were provided.

The DOJ’s latest document dump proved beyond argument that Jagland had cultivated a long‑running, warmly friendly, and explicitly transactional relationship with Epstein, in which he traded his status and access for luxury hospitality and financial favors, even after Epstein was a convicted sex offender.

The former Prime Minister and his family repeatedly stayed at Epstein properties in New York, Palm Beach, and Paris, with the tab for travel and accommodations picked up by Epstein, and had at one point planned a family trip to Little St. James.

The emails show Jagland often gushing over Epstein as a “fabulous person” and accepting use of his homes, while Epstein advertised that the sitting head of the Nobel Committee/Council of Europe Secretary General was “staying with me” to impress other power players. Writing to Epstein from Albania in 2012, Jagland enthused about the “extraordinary girls” there. In 2013, while preparing to celebrate his wife’s 60th birthday in the Caribbean, Jagland quipped, “I can’t keep it going only with young women as you know.”

The communications depict Epstein leveraging “Mr. Human Rights” (Jagland) as a prestige calling card to reach figures like Bill Gates, Larry Summers, Richard Branson, and (unsuccessfully) Vladimir Putin, while Jagland appears to rely on Epstein for perks, paid family holidays, and even exploring help with getting a bank loan.

In other words, this was not just “unwise contact,” but a years‑long quid‑pro‑quo friendship in which the man chairing the Nobel Committee and running the Council of Europe let a convicted predator bankroll his lifestyle while lending that predator his patina of legitimacy and access.

Norwegian authorities have charged Jagland with gross corruption over the alleged benefits from Epstein (which he continues to deny, when he isn’t recovering from self-harm). Norway’s economic crimes unit Økokrim is leading the investigation and has raided Jagland’s Oslo residence and other properties.

I’m just saying, but a lot of people who were hosting swanky celebratory dinners over Trump’s Mar-a-Lago raid are now finding out exactly how it feels.

🀄 Across the Pond, things got even worse for the British establishment, if that’s possible. Former UK Ambassador Peter Mandelson —the former political kingmaker and so-called “Prince of Darkness”— was arrested at his London flat yesterday afternoon. He was driven away in an unmarked police car, and questioned late into the night before being released on bail at 2 AM local time. The New York Times reported, “Epstein-Related Arrest of Peter Mandelson Rattles British Politics.”

Mandelson was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office— the same charge Prince Andrew was arrested for last week. According to the released files, Mandelson leaked Downing Street emails and warned Epstein —the man he called “my best pal”— about an imminent €500 billion eurozone bailout the day before it was announced.

Needless to say, knowing about a half-trillion-dollar EU bailout before everyone else provides a person with certain financial opportunities. For instance, one might hypothetically purchase large quantities of European sovereign debt, or short the euro, or buy bank stocks, or —and I’m just spitballing the obvious options here— do all three at once and then start buying private islands. Which, come to think of it, is very similar to what Epstein did.

“Mr. Mandelson was a towering figure in British politics for more than four decades,” the Times reported. “The arrest has taken him from the pinnacle of global diplomacy to a holding room in a local police station in central London.”

It is hard to overestimate how big the British are taking this news. “Arresting Peter Mandelson will push absolutely everything off the news,” London School of Economics Professor Tony Travers said, “as did Andrew.”

The Times is running tardy editorials trying to close the barn doors after Epstein. But BlueSkyers are looking at Andrew/Mandelson and complaining about the lack of arrests in the US. What if there’s a bigger picture here?

What if the UK is the proving ground?

The Epstein Cascade Theory

🀄 Shall we speculate? Suppose there is a carefully choreographed reckoning plan in play. By starting with British and Norwegian targets, the Epstein reckoning is happening in jurisdictions that are politically “safe” for the US— no domestic blowback, no accusations of partisan targeting, no reason for media monkeybusiness.

Andrew, Jagland, and Mandelson are establishing the template: you can arrest powerful, connected people over Epstein ties and the sky doesn’t fall.

Consider the charge. “Misconduct in public office” —sharing confidential government information with Epstein— is a corruption charge, rather than a sex trafficking charge. That’s crucial. It means you don’t have to prove anyone touched anyone in the bathing suit areas. You just have to prove they gave Epstein access, information, or favors he shouldn’t have had.

Corruption is much easier to prove, arguably more serious, and it dramatically expands who’s reachable. How many US officials, diplomats, and regulators gave Epstein unusual access or information? My goodness. That could be a very long list.

Call it a “normalization cascade.” Each arrest makes the next one less shocking:

1. First (former) Prince Andrew. He’s royalty — one of the biggest possible names in the UK. It establishes that no one is too big.

2. Then Mandelson, a top politician, former ambassador, and consigliere to Prime Ministers. It establishes it’s not just about the royals.

3. Then Jagland, former Nobel Peace Prize Chair and Council of Europe chief.

4. Then, whoever’s next in Europe establishes it’s a growing movement, not a one-off or two.

At some point in the near future, if we’re not there already, the public will be demanding American arrests. Overton window, opened.

The British arrests also provide the DOJ with political cover. Any US prosecutor bringing Epstein-related charges against powerful Americans would normally face hysterical lawsuits claiming political persecution. But once the UK and Norway have arrested five or six top dogs? At that point, the DOJ isn’t starting a witch hunt— they’re joining an ongoing international law enforcement effort. They’re cooperating with allies.

It would look worse not to act.

This is also an evidence cascade. Each UK arrest generates cooperation pressure. Mandelson knows American names. Andrew knows American names. Ditto Jagland. Their lawyers are probably negotiating right now. UK-US mutual legal assistance treaties mean evidence flows both ways. Each arrest shakes the evidence tree, and American names fall out.

Consider who’s most exposed in the US:

• Politicians who visited the island or flew on the plane and held public office at the time, on the same misconduct/corruption theory.

• Financial regulators, such as in the SEC, who may have looked the other way on Epstein’s fund.

• Intelligence community figures. The persistent theory that Epstein was an asset suggests someone may have been running him.

• Prosecutors who helped him get the sweetheart 2008 deal. Former US Attorney Alexander Acosta resigned in disgrace after Epstein’s second arrest, but criminal liability remains a different question.

🀄 Here’s the best part. US federal prosecutors have lots more ways to charge people for public corruption than the British do. British prosecutors are pretty much limited to that one common-law corruption charge. But here are just a few US options this lawyer could round up, and it’s not even my wheelhouse:

• Bribery of a public official (18 U.S.C. § 201).

• Honest services fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1346). This is a big one; it’s what they used to nab Jeffrey Skilling and Rod Blagojevich.

• The Hobbs Act— extortion under color of official right (18 U.S.C. § 1951). Applies to officials who solicited favors from Epstein.

• Conspiracy (18 U.S.C. § 371). A one-size-fits-all Swiss Army knife.

• RICO — racketeer-influenced and corrupt organizations.

Consider just Alexander Acosta. As US Attorney, he gifted Epstein with the infamous 2008 non-prosecution agreement. If that deal was produced by outside pressure —via the intelligence community, or political pressure— rather than prosecutorial judgment, everyone involved in that pressure campaign is potentially exposed under obstruction of justice statutes with no statute of limitations issue. After all, the cover-up continued until the files were unsealed.

In sum, US prosecutors don’t just have a charge like “public corruption”— they have an entire Golden Corral crimes buffet. The UK’s “misconduct in public office” is actually far narrower. The question until now was never whether the legal tools existed. It was whether prosecutors had the political will and support to turn the screws.

There’s one more critical advantage to an overseas-first rollout: the media. When an Andrew or a Mandelson gets arrested, corporate media covers it fairly— as straight international news. There’s no partisan lens, no “Trump’s DOJ targets political enemies” or “revenge!” framing, no defensive narratives. The New York Times is writing sympathetic, detailed, front-page stories about the Epstein corruption theory right now, building the cases in their own pages.

Which means that, by the time American names begin dropping, US media will have already established the seriousness of the charges, educated their own audience on how corruption works, and created a public expectation of American accountability— all with their own bylines. They’re unintentionally writing the prosecution’s press releases. Quid pro quo!

The overseas-first rollout couldn’t be more perfectly sequenced if someone had planned it this way.

The British are roughly producing Epstein arrests at a rate of one per business day. If this pace continues, they’ll run out of lords by Easter. And at some point, it seems likely to slosh back in this direction.

Have a terrific Tuesday! Your author will be back in C&C HQ tomorrow morning, so get ready for a business-as-usual-style roundup of essential news and cutting commentary.

Don’t race off! We cannot do it alone. Consider joining up with C&C to help move the nation’s needle and change minds. I could sure use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope, if you can: ☕ Learn How to Get Involved 🦠

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