In February and March this year, scarcely a day passed without fresh headlines about the Epstein connections of Thorbjørn Jagland, Terje Rød-Larsen and Mona Juul.

Now, five months later, there is almost complete silence.

Why?

Let us first recap just how serious the matter actually is. On 12 February, Økokrim charged Jagland with gross corruption in connection with allegations that he received gifts, travel and accommodation in Epstein’s apartments in Paris and New York, as well as an extended stay at his villa in Palm Beach. This while he was serving as Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee and Secretary General of the Council of Europe. The same week, Økokrim opened an investigation into the married couple Mona Juul and Terje Rød-Larsen – Juul was charged with gross corruption and Rød-Larsen with aiding and abetting gross corruption. This followed revelations concerning the flow of funds to his think tank, the International Peace Institute. All three denied criminal liability.

So what has happened to them since then?

Rauland, 7 March 2026
Thorbjørn Jagland’s cabin in Holtardalen, Rauland, Telemark. One wonders whether it was purchased honestly.
Photo: Jon Eeg / NTB

According to his lawyer, Jagland was admitted to hospital around 17 February as a result of the strain caused by the investigation and the media attention. He remained in hospital until mid-March. In May, he was transferred from inpatient care to what was described as “long-term” outpatient treatment. Since then: nothing. No update on whether the treatment has ended, whether he has resumed his normal life, or how he is doing. A man who once served as the country’s Prime Minister and spent ten years leading the Council of Europe has simply disappeared from public view, without anyone asking how he is faring.

Mona Juul resigned as Ambassador to Jordan and Iraq in February and formally retired on 1 May. Document’s own reporting showed that she left the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with a substantial pension worth several million kroner, despite the corruption charge. There the public record ends. What she now does with her days, whether she still lives in Norway, whether she has spoken to anyone – none of this has been covered.

According to his lawyer, John Christian Elden, Rød-Larsen is co-operating fully and believes the case should be dropped once the facts have been established. Økokrim disagrees that it is ready to be dismissed. Director Pål Lønseth has warned that the investigation will be “extensive and, in all likelihood, protracted”, and confirmed in May that it will not be completed this year. According to Aftenposten, several witnesses have reportedly come forward with information concerning the couple.

Laurel and Hardy fooled us all. Photo: Michael Ø. Beck / SCANPIX

There is, of course, an obvious practical explanation. An investigation which, according to Økokrim itself, will take several years will naturally generate less news coverage than the dramatic weeks surrounding the charges. The summer holiday period also bears some of the blame. But that does not explain why no newsroom has followed up something as simple as a health update on a former Prime Minister, or asked the equally straightforward question of what a retired ambassador charged with corruption is actually doing with her days.

In the meantime, the Storting has allocated NOK 22 million to a commission of inquiry chaired by Amund Djuve, which is not due to submit its report to Parliament until January 2028. That gives the media ample time to forget Jagland, Rød-Larsen and Juul long before anyone is held accountable.

And in that way, there is plenty of time to conceal evidence, delete messages and contacts – exactly as is customary within the Labour Party. By 2028, most of it will have been forgotten, and most of it will quietly disappear into the long grass, as it almost always does when members of our elite are concerned.

That also gives everyone else (if there are others, and that possibility can hardly be dismissed, considering the school for rogues that Parliament has become) ample time to cover their tracks and avoid being drawn into the case and receiving the punishment they deserve.

There is a vast gulf between them and you – make no mistake about that. Had you, for example, been Mona Juul, you would now be sitting in pre-trial detention, prohibited from receiving visitors or correspondence.

Instead, she is drawing a generous state pension and raising a champagne glass somewhere in the summer sunshine, at a location you are not permitted to know. She and the others can feel confident that they will be well looked after by both the media and, not least, the Norwegian civil service.

Those who were supposed to be servants of the country’s citizens have, in reality, become part of a repellent elite whose long octopus-like tentacles extend into every corner of the public administration, the law and official practice.

They may well be sitting on a beach somewhere at this very moment, laughing at the rest of us. They deceived us all, and we are doing nothing about it.

PS! And we have already forgotten Børge Brende…