The Epstein files and the Starmer government is John Kiriakou’s reading of where the Epstein disclosures were doing real political damage in early 2026 — which, in his account, was not the United States.
The American exception
Asked about senior European officials resigning over Epstein connections in France and Belgium, Kiriakou expected the pattern to widen: “I think that this is going to start to spread.” The irony he identifies is domestic: “ironically, the United States appears to be the only place where nobody’s taking these Epstein revelations seriously.”[1]
The British case
He had made the prediction before and repeated it: “I said last week, this could bring down the, uh, the Kirst government.”[2]
The evidence he cites concerns two men. “Now there there are two different pieces of evidence indicating that former Prince Andrew and Peter Mandelson both gave um both gave Epstein classified documents from the British Ministry of Defense.”[2]
The legal characterisation follows: “If so, that would be a violation of this the um Official Secrets Act, which in in the United States would be a violation of the Espionage Act.”[2][3]
The comparison of regimes
Kiriakou — who was himself charged under the Espionage Act — rates the British statute as the harsher of the two. “uh they’re far tougher than we are uh with these these violations, these classified document violations.”[3]
The political consequence
The chain he sketches runs from prosecution to leadership challenge. “And not only is Peter Manderson likely going to prison, but this could be enough to cause backbenchers in the Labor Party to force a vote on leadership. It could be the end of Kier Starmer in the next couple of weeks.”[3]
What he thinks remains
On whether the rest of the files would ever surface, Kiriakou is more hopeful than his co-host. He had spent much of the previous week reading them himself and “found several John Brennan related documents that I’m going to try to make some hay over.” The scale is what sustains his optimism: “Three three million documents. It’s people are still going through them and there are millions left. I mean, the guy was like the guy never got off email.”[4]
His position on the American side of the affair is that the expiry of limitation periods should not settle it. The people who dealt with Epstein — “the general counsel for for Goldman Sachs and all these billionaire businessmen who thought it was perfectly okay to associate with a child rapist” — “need to be called to account.”[5][6]