Mette-Marit apologises for ‘poor judgment’ as documents reportedly include scores of email exchanges with child sex offender

Norway’s crown princess has become embroiled in another scandal after newly unsealed files appeared to show her years of extensive contact with the late child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The latest tranche of Epstein files, released on Friday by the US justice department, appear to include nearly 1,000 mentions of the crown princess, Mette-Marit.

The files include scores of emails traded between the two, suggesting they were in contact from 2011 to 2014, the Norwegian daily VG reported. Mette-Marit married the future king of Norway in 2001.

The revelations come at a sensitive time for the royal family. The trial of Mette-Marit’s son, Marius Borg Høiby forremoved is due to begin on Tuesday. He was born from a relationship before she married Crown Prince Haakon

Høiby is facing 38 charges, including the allegedremoved of four women as well as alleged assault and drug offences. If convicted he could face up to 16 years in prison. Høiby has denied the most serious charges, including those of sexual abuse.

On Saturday, Mette-Marit addressed her relationship with Epstein, who killed himself in jail in 2019 as he awaited trial for sex crimes against minors.

“I showed poor judgment and I deeply regret having had any contact with Epstein. It is simply embarrassing,” she said in a statement issued by the royal palace.

The Norwegian media’s attention was this weekend focused on the many emails that the princess exchanged with Epstein, years after he pleaded guilty to charges that included soliciting prostitution from a minor in Florida.

The emails contained in the files suggested the two were close, with Mette-Marit telling Epstein that “you tickle my brain” in one message and calling him “soft hearted” and “such a sweetheart” in others.

In 2012, Mette-Marit told Epstein he was “very charming” and asked if it was “inappropriate for a mother to suggest two naked women carrying a surfboard for my 15 yr old sons wallpaper?”

Weeks earlier she and Epstein had traded emails about him being on a “wife hunt” in Paris. She replied that the French capital was “good for adultery” and added that “Scandis (are) better wife material”.

In another, she thanked Epstein for flowers he had sent when she was feeling unwell, signing off with “Love, Mm.”

The exchanges regularly made mention of plans to get together, while files indicate she also stayed at his house in Palm Beach, Florida, for four days in 2013 when Epstein was not there.

Inclusion in the files does not imply wrongdoing.

In her statement on Saturday, Mette-Marit, 52, expressed her “deep sympathy and solidarity” with Epstein’s victims and said she was responsible “for not having checked Epstein’s background more closely and not understanding quickly enough what kind of person he was”.

The files, however, include a 2011 exchange in which Mette-Marit told Epstein that she had “Googled” him, adding “it didn’t look too good” along with a smiling emoji. The email did not specify what she had found during her online search.

The palace said Mette-Marit had ended written contact with Epstein in 2014 as she felt he was “trying to use his relationship with the crown princess as leverage with other people”.

As the seven-week trial of her son gets under way in Oslo, the royal couple are not expected to attend. Haakon has told reporters that Mette-Marit would be away on a private trip during that period.

Høiby does not have a royal title and is outside the line of royal succession. Earlier this year, the Norwegian royal court addressed the trial in a statement, saying: “It is for the courts to consider this matter and reach a decision. We have no further comment.”

At the diplomatic and rhetorical levels, support has been received from many countries, for Cuba, “but behind those speeches there is more, things that we also cannot openly explain because the enemy is pursuing every avenue that Cuba might open up for them.” “I can assure you, with the utmost responsibility, that Cuba is not alone.”

“Right now there are people, governments, countries, institutions, and companies that are willing to work with Cuba, and that have already shared with us ways, mechanisms, and intentions of how we can do so”

“The energy persecution, the financial persecution, the intensification of the blockade with these coercive measures is such that we know we have to do a very strong, very creative, very intelligent job to overcome all these obstacles”

“Not allowing a single drop of fuel to enter our country will affect transportation, food production, tourism, children’s education, and the healthcare system.”

“They are waging psychological warfare against Cuba to fracture the unity of the Cuban people and generate uncertainty,”

“I am not an idealist. I know that we are going to live through difficult times, but we will overcome them together, with creative resistance and the contribution of the majority of Cubans."

“The country must be able to sustain itself with its own energy sources: our own oil, our own gas, biomass, solar energy…”

“By the end of February, we will have added another 98 MW from renewable sources; by the end of March, we will have added another 58 MW, on the path to energy independence.”

“The way the US energy blockade has been implemented reinforces our commitment to the renewable energy strategy.”

“Even with an energy blockade, we will not give up on receiving fuel in our country.”

“I always say that all generations of Cubans, from those born in the early years of the Revolution to the most recent, our grandchildren, our children, were born and lived under a blockade and were born under the signs of this economic suffocation.”

“Cuba does not have a relationship of dependency with Venezuela, but rather a relationship of exchange between sister nations within an integration project.”

Economic and commercial relations, as well as significant collaborative projects in energy and medical services, were formed between Cuba and Venezuela, some of which were offset by fuel payments.

“At one time, they did cover all of our country’s fuel needs, but not recently, because we must remember that Venezuela has been subjected to sanctions, coercive measures, and pressures that have affected this exchange”

He added that once the energy and naval blockade against Venezuela began, it prevented ships from Venezuela, and even from other nations carrying Venezuelan fuel, from reaching Cuba.

“The situation is further aggravated by the executive order recently signed by the United States government, which uses threats of tariffs to manipulate countries that supply oil to Cuba. Under this pretext, they have practically imposed an energy blockade on our country.”

“It’s our sovereign duty, in the face of a period of aggression, to prepare for an attack.”

“All the country’s territorial defense systems are being prepared and their plans updated.”

“Cuba is a peaceful country; we are not a threat to the US,” but we have the right to defend ourselves.

“We know that terrorists are being financed and are preparing in Miami to carry out attacks in Cuba, and we will denounce them at the appropriate time.”

“Surrender is not an option in this country.”

“Trump, with his statements, acknowledges that there is no failed state, but rather a state that has had to confront the aggressions and sanctions of the most powerful empire in the world, when he says that there is no other pressure to apply to Cuba than to destroy and devastate it.”

“Cuba is willing to engage in dialogue with the US, dialogue on any issue, but without pressure, without preconditions, on equal footing, with respect for our sovereignty and self-determination, in a civilized dialogue that can build a relationship between neighbors that benefits both countries.”

A massive Navy contract vehicle, once valued at $10 billion, has ballooned to a staggering $55 billion ceiling to expedite President Donald Trump’s “mass deportation” agenda.

This $45 billion increase, published just weeks ago, converts the U.S. into a “geographic region” for expeditionary military-style detention. It signals a massive, long-term escalation in the government’s capacity to pay for detention and deportation logistics. In the world of federal contracting, it is the difference between a temporary surge and a permanent infrastructure.

Task orders allow DHS to bypass the months-long public bidding process for every new facility. When the contract says task orders are issued when “specific dates and locations are identified,” it means the infrastructure is currently a “ghost” network that can be materialized anywhere in the U.S. the moment a site is picked.

MY TAKE: If Congress does nothing, DHS will continue to thrive. With three more years pre-funded, plus a U.S. Navy as a benefactor, Secretary Kristi Noem–or any potential successor–has the legal and financial runway to keep the business of creating ICE concentration camps overnight in American communities running long after any news cycle fades.

While Kennedy predicts a “long, long shutdown” for DHS, this contract vehicle suggests the department has already secured the “ceiling” it needs to operate at a massive scale regardless of the immediate budget battles in the House.