Control and Culture in the Foreign Service - Norwegian Hearings on Epstein Contacts

"Control and culture in the foreign administration" is the moderate title of this week's hearings in the Norwegian Constitution Committee in the Storting. But it is about the contacts of the top managers and diplomats with the six-convicted financier Jeffrey Epstein.

When the new Epstein documents were released last winter, it became clear that several very influential people in Norwegian social life had close contacts with Epstein, who died in custody in August 2019. The future Queen Mette-Marit's visit to Epstein's villa in Palm Beach in 2013 received the most attention.

But also former Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland, top diplomats Mona Juul and Terje Rød-Larsen and former Foreign Minister Børge Brende were drawn into the scandal. And it is the foreign administration's network that is the focus of this week's hearings in the Storting. Was something immoral going on behind the scenes in the moral superpower Norway?

Many of Norway's power elite have passed through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Oslo. Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre from the Labor Party and Høyre's new party leader Ine Eriksen Søreide will both be questioned on Wednesday about their previous experiences as foreign ministers.

After lunch, an interview will be held with Børge Brende, Minister of Foreign Affairs from Høyre 2013–2017, now best known for his more than eight years as head of the World Economic Forum. As recently as January this year, he led the conversation with US President Donald Trump in Davos. It was in the middle of the Greenland crisis and Brende tried to get the White House to specify its ambitions in the Arctic.

Then Trump went home and signed a new law on the Epstein documents, and millions of classified FBI pages became public. They showed that Børge Brende had close contacts with the six-convicted financier during the period 2018–2019.

Big political discussions about how Davos could replace the UN in the new world order were mixed with private conversations and courtship on Brende's 53rd birthday. The logs showed that Brende initiated several meetings and dinners.

Brende is not a criminal suspect. It remains to be seen whether he feels he has a moral obligation to contribute to the explanations of how Epstein managed to manipulate a global power elite. What exactly made the head of the World Economic Forum send intrusive messages with messages like "Missing you Sir" and "You are way too kind"?

The constitutional committee hearings are just one of several investigations into Epstein. The Storting has also appointed an independent external review commission that will submit its final report in January 2028. In addition, the ecocrime agency Økokrim has opened corruption investigations into Mona Juul, Terje Rød-Larsen and Thorbjørn Jagland.

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