The Curious Case of the Epstein Files Pt. 3

The Friday Brief is back! It took some time to read the Epstein Files and dig into the geopolitical consequences, including where senior government officials, like diplomats, are mentioned. This episode covers the unverified claims and wild allegations against former U.S. Ambassador Earl Anthony Wayne and the U.S. government. Will we ever have answers about the Epstein files in the United States? And, who could provide those answers? 

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Transcript

Welcome to The Friday Brief, a news podcast by Girl Friday. I’m Phoenix Ricks, the CEO of Girl Friday and your host. This is your brief for May 19, 2026. I’ve been on a podcast hiatus, working and digging into the Epstein files in every spare moment. I had episodes planned for you on the Epstein files, but the more I read, the more I needed to investigate. In the end, the reporting felt better in writing, at least initially, because the files are complicated, and claims are in dispute. In writing, I can easily provide the links to sources for you. So, I started a Substack called Geopolitics for Good, and I see some of you have already found me there. Thank you. My first piece on the Epstein files is called The Haunting of the Epstein Files, and that is what I’m going to talk about today. My main focus in digging through the Epstein files is to find geopolitical ties and geopolitical consequences, like government officials who allegedly used their power and perhaps even our tax dollars to aid Jeffrey Epstein and his nefarious agendas. In my first piece, I dissected the files about a former U.S. ambassador, Earl Anthony Wayne, who currently teaches at American University in Washington DC, where I earned my first graduate degree. And that’s what I’ll talk about today, because you can easily find the links to the sources on my Substack. Now pulling from American University’s faculty profile, in addition to his role at the university, Wayne is Co-Chair of the Mexico Program Board at the Inter American Dialogue, he’s a member of the Board of the Public Diplomacy Council of America, a Senior Non-Resident Adviser at the Atlantic Council, and at the Center for Security and International Studies. He is also a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy and consults on international topics. Wayne served as a U.S. diplomat from 1975 to 2015, including as Ambassador to Argentina and Ambassador to Mexico. We served at the State Department at the same time, toward the end of his tenure, though I did not know him personally. He is mentioned in the Epstein files in unverified claims about child sex trafficking in Mexico in or about 2014. The claims can be found in a series of emails between Ken Turner, whose identity has been speculated about but never fully confirmed to my knowledge, and an NYPD detective named Walter Harkins. Before you read the files or my piece on Substack, there are two things to be aware of: first, please keep in mind that we only have a portion of the Epstein files because Congress has not released them in full. We don’t know if those disjointed emails about Wayne are missing documents or claims that could verify the alleged crimes, or absolve any of the alleged offenders. Second, I want to be very clear with the trigger warning: the allegations against Wayne are among the most repulsive crimes against children described in the Epstein files. I will not mention them further on this podcast because of their heinous nature and their complete lack of verification. Because of the vile nature of those allegations, students at American University protested the university’s decision to keep him on the faculty. It made university news. Yet, you probably haven’t even heard this story. I’m an alumna of American University, and I live in Washington DC, and I’m in diplomatic circles, and I would not have known about the protests or allegations if I weren’t personally researching the Epstein files. I find the lack of coverage and conversation so curious. You can find articles from major Mexican outlets about these specific allegations, but not in the United States. Certainly, journalism students at American University aren’t the only ones who have seen the Epstein files in our country. I saw so many comments on social media about those specific allegations against Wayne, yet nothing ever pops up in our major U.S. news outlets. Not to confirm Turner’s story, deny Turner’s claims, figure out who Turner is or was, or even just cover the mere existence of the allegations. How curious. There’s not even a line on Wayne’s Wikipedia page about the allegations in the Epstein files. Now, you might say, well, if allegations are unverified and damaging, then that explains why no journalists or politicians are talking about them. Innocent until proven guilty, right? But if you hop outside of our jurisdiction, you’ll find that current and former government officials abroad who have been named in the Epstein files are regularly discussed in their press and by their governments. They are properly investigated, so if allegations are false, they can be publicly cleared of any wrongdoing, and if allegations are true, they can be held accountable. Nowhere is this happening more rapidly than in Norway and the United Kingdom. Looking to the latter, the BBC reported that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Keir Starmer, has refused to resign over the Epstein files. Yet, that resignation conversation is happening because the UK press properly interrogated the files. Starmer is at risk of losing his political career and reputation because he appointed Peter Mandelson to be the UK ambassador to the US, despite known security concerns about Mandelson and his prior relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. None of that was public, though, not until the Epstein files hit the public U.S. Department of Justice website. And yes, this became a scandal for Starmer once the UK press reported on Mandelson’s appearance in the files, and the British public and UK politicians then demanded answers. That is a familiar cycle you will see in other countries where their press and governments are actually investigating the unverified and even sometimes outlandish claims about their citizens in the Epstein files. But that’s not happening within the U.S. press and the U.S. government. How curious. Now, to be clear, legally and on the record, Wayne has responded to American University’s journalism students, saying he is innocent and is backed by the American Academy of Diplomacy. Which you may recall from the faculty profile I noted above, he’s a member of. The Academy says it followed established State Department procedures to investigate the allegations against Wayne in the Epstein files, and it backs his claim of innocence. I believe that may be true. They could be correct. There are still three major problems, in my view at least, as someone who worked at the State Department. On a positive note, the Academy’s process for investigating the claims with Wayne’s former colleagues, who should have been briefed on any security concerns, seems tried and true. If a U.S. official is arrested or gets into trouble with local law enforcement, as Turner alleged happened in his emails to the NYPD, Diplomatic Security at the U.S. mission should technically be notified, which would then escalate up the chain to relevant Undersecretaries. However, and this is where things could get unusual, Turner also said in those emails that the U.S. government actively worked to cover up the alleged crimes. That means, again, just in theory, the trail of documentation we should see on things like arrests and police raids, all alleged in Turner’s emails, may not exist. Turner mentioned two U.S. government connections in his emails to the NYPD. Earl Anthony Wayne, who at the time would have been the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, and Richard Marcinko, who once famously commanded SEAL Team Six but was retired from the Navy at the time of the allegations. He passed away in 2021 and is still regularly celebrated for his military achievements, though his professional history is peppered with some rogue moments, including a federal prison sentence. The Academy, in my view, did the right thing to investigate Wayne within the scope of typical State Department procedures. But my question is, is the right process the most complete process? If any of Turner’s claims were true, do you think investigating his assertions via the normal chain of command would yield all the answers? Let’s look at this in another context. Let’s say the principal of a school was accused of a crime, and the superintendent of the whole school district was accused of successfully covering up that crime. If you went back, years later, to determine the principal’s innocence or guilt, would you ask the principal’s former colleagues who were there at the time of the alleged cover-up? You might, but would those people be the best positioned to answer all of the questions? Which brings me to my second question. Why hasn’t law enforcement issued a statement? Of all the journalists in the U.S. who have read these files, only one intrepid group bothered to track down Walter Harkins, the NYPD detective in the emails. Once again, it was the journalism students at American University, reporting for The Wash. The NYPD detective, now retired, told them, rather abruptly, “How dare you call me. Don’t let me hear from you again.” He provided no other answers. In American University’s other online paper, The Eagle, they note that in the files, there’s an internal FBI document stating that Turner did not provide the FBI with evidence to support his claims. So, again, we’re still missing millions of files that Congress was supposed to release. From what we know today, no one investigated Turner’s claims, and instead, law enforcement appears to have waited for him to provide substantial evidence, which, according to the files we have, he did not. Based on what we have, that seems to be a very easy open-and-shut statement to draft. For law enforcement to say, together: we received an unhinged series of emails with no supporting evidence, and we chose not to investigate further at the time because we believed none of it was true, and we had nothing credible to follow up on. Simple, right? Which brings me to my third question, the one that is the most pressing for me. Why haven’t any former U.S. officials, who were in a major position of authority at the time, issued a statement? Given the timing of the unverified claims, a statement could be issued by former President Barack Obama or former Secretary of State John Kerry. It would be so easy for Obama and Kerry to say, yeah, we saw those unverified claims about our ambassador to Mexico, and we can tell you, as the two former senior officials who slated him for that role, that it definitely didn’t happen, and we’re going to clear the record not just for him, but for the govenment, for the American people, and for history. Similarly, it would be so easy for the Mexican government, also directly named in those emails from Turner to the NYPD, to say, Hey, yeah, we saw that he said we were aware of these alleged crimes, but listen, bless his heart, we don’t know anything about it. But, to date, from what I’ve read, they have also not responded to requests for comments about those files. Now, this could all be a tragic mistake, and everyone’s collective silence may not mean anything at all. This could be a situation where a man who was deeply unwell, or perhaps really bored, contacted law enforcement with a completely fabricated tale. That is a genuine possibility. Or, it could be the case of a man who had some valid information about a real human trafficking ring, but in the process of collecting evidence as a civilian armchair detective, he accidentally implicated the wrong perpetrators, not knowing years later it would come out in this data dump of the Epstein Files. It could also be where numerous things are true and false at the same time in Turner’s emails. Wayne could be innocent, and there still could have been a child trafficking ring connected to Epstein in Mexico. There are so many possibilities, and yet, the thing that continues to strike me as the most curious is that no one with the ability to clear up these allegations has stepped up publicly to say, with their name on the record, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt none of the claims in those emails ever happened. And if you’re thinking, well, the claims are so wild that maybe our government officials, past and present, believe no one outside of students at American University would ever take those emails seriously, so there’s no reason to address them. If you’re thinking that, please keep in mind we have senior U.S. officials, past and present, on record this year talking about aliens from space. But no one has had the time or presence of mind to go on a podcast or a late-night show or on a campaign trail to grab a microphone and say, no, the U.S. government is not guilty of perpetrating or covering up any of the alleged crimes against children that Ken Turner detailed in those emails to the NYPD. I find that curious. No matter what you believe after reading the files and Wayne’s responses, we’re all left in limbo because no one in authority is meaningfully investigating claims in the files about U.S. citizens and U.S. government officials. The American Academy of Diplomacy did more due diligence than I’ve seen from probably any other U.S. institution thus far. But they were only tasked with investigating Wayne to the best of their ability, not all of Turner’s claims. That’s not their responsibility. If you believe their findings, well, then an innocent man, who was a decorated career public servant, will have to keep defending himself against absolutely horrifying claims that are publicly available for anyone to read and interpret at will because our government won’t come forward to address the validity of anything in the Epstein files or provide additional context. If you believe Wayne, but think there’s any merit to Turner’s claim about Epstein possibly being involved in a child trafficking ring in Mexico, then it’s still deeply concerning that no one seems to be looking into that rather critical point of his emails. For Epstein and human trafficking to have dominated the news cycle and been a key driver in how some Americans voted in the last presidential election, I find the lack of media coverage and investigation into the Epstein files bizarre. It seems like every week there’s some new culinary adventure happening on a CNN series, but we don’t have a series on any of these major networks meaningfully tracing all of the human trafficking stories in the Epstein files. Beauty content creators on social media have connected more dots than our government and our press. I find that so curious. You can read more about this case in the Epstein files on Geopolitics for Good, my Substack. I’ll be back tomorrow with my usual deep dives into global affairs and world news. If you aren’t already following my new Instagram, check me out at xoPhoenixRicks. My Instagram stories are updated daily with news from around the world, and I post reels offering snapshot analyses of current events, like Trump’s summit in China. Thank you for listening to The Friday Brief. Be sure to send this podcast to your friends. Until next time, I’m Phoenix Ricks, signing off from Washington, DC. Let’s work together for a world of good.