“Mona Juul will first and foremost account for her contact with Jeffrey Epstein to her employer, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This will take place during the coming week, in accordance with the clarifications made with the Ministry,” Juul’s lawyer, Thomas Skjelbred, said in a statement sent to journalists last Friday evening.
Media reports in late January said that Epstein had intended to leave $5 million each to the couple’s two children in a change to his will made after his arrest in the summer of 2019, shortly before his death in prison in August 2019.
Juul is a former politician for Norway’s Labour Party. She and her husband played a key role in negotiating the Oslo Accords, the interim peace agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in the early 1990s.
Several other prominent Norwegians have appeared in the Epstein files, including Crown Princess Mette-Marit and World Economic Forum President and former Foreign Minister Børge Brende. Appearance in the files does not in itself imply wrongdoing or illegal behavior.
POLITICO reached out to Norway’s Foreign Ministry and to Juul’s lawyer for comment but did not immediately receive an answer.