The Curious Case of the Epstein Files pt. 2

Linwood Barnhill, a former DC police officer, was just tried and convicted of child trafficking. For the second time. How do human traffickers get away with kidnapping victims and moving them in plain sight? I worked in anti-human trafficking at the start of my career in global affairs, so in this episode, I'm sharing the lessons I learned from the anti-trafficking movement before we dive into the geopolitical implications of the Epstein files and Jeffrey Epstein's crimes. 

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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 February 10, 2026. Here in Washington DC, a former DC police officer named Linwood Barnhill was just tried and sentenced again for trafficking children. This is Barnhill’s second sentencing for child trafficking, because the nanosecond he was freed the first time, he went right back to finding and abusing young teenage girls. Human trafficking is in the news daily thanks to the Epstein files, but Barnhill’s case flew under the news radar. Why is that? Over the next few episodes, I'm going to talk about the Epstein files, starting with this episode, where I'll tell you what I learned from working in anti-human-trafficking. I started working in global anti-child trafficking in 2010, when Jeffrey Epstein was already a known predator and convicted sex offender. That era of anti-human trafficking was chaotic, and I believed then, and now, that two movements were designed to intentionally undermine genuine anti-trafficking efforts and water down legal ramifications for human trafficking. My first role involved educating airline leadership, prominent foreign diplomats, and members of Congress about child trafficking and how to stop child trafficking in transit. During this era of anti-trafficking, celebrities and public figures were throwing their hats in the ring to talk about human trafficking. This was the hot policy topic in human rights in DC. In fact, that first organization I worked for was founded after my former boss had several conversations at socialite events about human trafficking with a senior European royal, a world-famous singer, and a well-known political operative in Hillary Clinton’s immediate circle. Anti-trafficking organizations, often small, were desperate for political spotlight, as securing grants to sustain anti-trafficking work was difficult. But to attract a celebrity or high-profile politician, you had to be cautious about which policy issues and solutions within anti-trafficking you focused on. For instance, some of these celebrities had frankly dubious histories with the topic, and you couldn't give them talking points that called out their past legal woes. Organizations had to pander in various ways to the public's perception of human trafficking just to get by financially. For instance, FBI data clearly shows us that children in poverty are more at risk, but that wasn’t what the most politically influential anti-trafficking organizations focused on. U.S. lawmakers clearly wanted to talk about human trafficking in a very specific way that was advantageous to their image and their future political goals. In my opinion, U.S. politicians are fine with addressing trafficking issues they can legislate on without upsetting wealthy donors or powerful partners who endorse their campaigns. In my early experiences, none of the lawmakers I approached ever wanted to chat about the fact that we heard stories about members of the legal system being involved in human trafficking in the United States. They liked seeing SWAT teams conduct raids to free trafficking victims (makes for great photos), but they didn't want to talk about the officers those victims had met in other circumstances. They watered down the anti-human trafficking movement. You’ll hear me say this across policy issues. If you can legislate but not regulate, it's just public relations. So, during that era of my work, I watched large anti-trafficking organizations coalesce around the same palatable topics and feel-good initiatives to ensure financial longevity and political support. It was always framed as if doing good required strategic sacrifices, but I think it hurt the organizations doing the best work. Galas to raise money, educational campaigns in schools about walking home safely, and self-defense lessons for college women all became the norm in anti-trafficking programming. There isn't anything inherently wrong with those initiatives, but they needed to be supported by structural changes like guaranteed housing for trafficking victims and guaranteed employment for foster kids when they graduate. To make matters worse, between 2010 and 2013, I observed two critical shifts in the anti-trafficking movement's policy focus. First, the largest or most influential organizations started only talking about global human trafficking as if U.S. human trafficking was not occurring or was only happening with foreign victims who were trafficked here. I remember attending an event where an American survivor angrily explained that people didn't seem to believe that she was trafficked, because it "only" happened across state lines. You could feel that her rage was not just directed at society broadly but at us, anti-trafficking organizations. She was right. The second policy shift I observed was, I still believe, the most devastating to anti-trafficking work. By the time I left anti-human trafficking policy work in 2013, the movement had become a far-right-wing Christian fairy tale about human trafficking. Think about how many right-wing politicians, podcasters, and political operatives were screeching about pizzagate and cabals of elite traffickers when they could allege that the criminals were all part of the political left. Now that the Epstein files are out and their side is heavily featured, they want to act as if those files don't matter. They used anti-trafficking language to win elections, not to expose or solve the real problem. I saw the beginnings of all of that in 2010, so it was not surprising to me that they were able to successfully position themselves as moral authorities on child welfare in the lead-up to the last three U.S. presidential elections. I’m a Christian, but it was always fascinating to me that these right-wing advocates chose to focus on prayer for victims and grace for offenders, not on restitution and prosecution. Very little of this was publicly known back then. For instance, the second anti-trafficking organization I worked for appeared politically neutral and religiously unaffiliated on the surface. Yet, they required us to pray in a circle during staff meetings. Our staff updates were delivered as a collective prayer. Like, “Thank you, God, for the donor checks that came last week from our new Evangelical megachurch partner.” Seriously, this is how we gave staff updates. Eyes closed, in a group prayer for money. Keep in mind that none of this was disclosed during the interview process or presented in any language about the organization. On the outside, it was just another do-gooder anti-human trafficking organization. On the inside, the organization was trying to convert people in another country to Evangelical Christian beliefs. The leadership openly disliked other religions, and my boss would lament, in prayers no less, that she was going to one day be a minority. The obsession with superiority consumed every aspect of our anti-trafficking work. Thinking about those two critical shifts I observed, at the time I kept wondering, who would be compelled to support a scattered anti-trafficking movement that isn't, as a whole, at least, working to solve the problem? I kept asking myself, why is this type of useless anti-trafficking advocacy growing? Why are the organizations that do the least in this field always given the political spotlight? It took a minute, but with experience, I concluded, hypothetically, of course, that this new style of anti-trafficking advocacy could be very enticing to people engaged in criminal activity. Because no one was talking about them. On that note, let’s get back to the federal case against Linwood Barnhill of Washington DC. He is only a "former police officer" because he had to step down from his role in 2014, once he was headed to court for crimes against children. He had been a DC police officer since the 1990s. Do you think he just fell into crime mere days before his arrest? Not according to the FBI. The Special Agent in charge told Fox5DC, “While serving as a police officer over a decade ago, Barnhill preyed on underage girls. He took explicit photos of them and even forced one victim to work as a prostitute." In research, you'll find evidence of traffickers returning to crime when they are freed. People will say it's the long-term allure of money and violence. I don't discount those factors, but I think there's more to the story: traffickers are often portrayed and prosecuted as lone-wolf criminals, but I believe they are most likely part of a larger network of traffickers and buyers. According to the Miami Herald, Barnhill found victims in North Carolina and Florida and would bring his victims back to a Maryland nightclub. Take a minute to consider the structure of his criminal enterprise. He was abusing minors, that's at minimum a state charge, and he was crossing state lines while committing several additional crimes, so that's a list of federal charges. Why would Barnhill travel up and down the coast to bring victims back to the Washington DC area? Why would he risk things like routine traffic stops that could expose his crimes? He had already served time in prison for this same crime. You could say, well, maybe traffickers are terrible people, but not terribly bright people. That's what I would often hear when I worked in anti-trafficking, but I think that's far too simplistic to explain the proliferation of a multibillion-dollar crime industry that involves kidnapping people and moving them in plain sight. From a criminal perspective, Barnhill had opportunities to traffic those victims in the states where he was finding them. There's only one common denominator in the two cases against him. The final destination: Washington, DC. I've yet to see any meaningful public information about who he trafficked these victims for and why the DC area is a known hotspot for sex trafficking. Theories abound. We have three international airports and a beltway system that facilitates regional transportation. We also have serious economic disparities in this region, and there’s a ton of U.S. government data that proves factors like childhood poverty can contribute to the emergence of trafficking hotspots. What you don't see in research on human trafficking in this region is an answer to who is engaging with the victims. For an area to become a trafficking hot spot, you don't just have conditions for supply; you also have demand. Why would a trafficker like Linwood Barnhill, who is already a monitored and registered sex offender, feel safe bringing victims to a city filled with lawyers, politicians, diplomats, and federal law enforcement agencies when he could conduct his awful criminal enterprise elsewhere? I cannot imagine that we're coming to wildly different conclusions. In my opinion, traffickers feel safe committing these crimes here for a reason, and it's likely the same reason we won't get all the answers to our questions about those Epstein files if we don't demand them. I say this frequently from my experience working in anti-trafficking: human trafficking, especially at scale, can only exist with the assistance of the law. Where you find a human trafficking ring, you'll likely find members of the legal and political system. Just keep all of this information about anti-trafficking in mind as you think about how Epstein was able to commit so many heinous crimes in the U.S. and why, even after being a convicted child predator, he was still welcomed in exclusive global political circles. As I dive into the geopolitical implications of the Epstein files, I want you to also consider how the veneer of public good shelters people like Jeffrey Epstein. Is this coincidental or done with intent? Bear in mind that during the height of the initial scrutiny of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, his daughter, Princess Eugenie, launched the Anti-Slavery Collective. They focus on ending modern slavery in supply chains. It seems so inspiring, yet for me, it feels all too familiar. Look over there at that problem in human trafficking, just not over here at this one. If I learned one thing from my time in anti-human trafficking, the call is always coming from inside the house. Join me tomorrow for the next episode on Jeffrey Epstein. I’m starting at the very beginning, with the 2005 call to Florida authorities about Epstein committing crimes against minors. Thank you for listening to The Friday Brief. Be sure to follow The Friday Brief on Instagram. Until next time, I'm Phoenix Ricks, signing off from Washington, DC. Let's work together for a world of good.