They will never release them. The distraction will morph into all the electoral subterfuge they will attempt as they increasingly fear losing power at the polls. They know what's in those files and what will happen to them if they lose in 2028. Thus they will be even more incentivized to behave badly.
If gas prices double from here it will be less stupid distraction and more overt authoritarianism... the ICE question has not been settled. ICE is still violating your neighbors and making a mockery of what is supposed to be a society of free people. They merely thought the overt city takeovers and shooting Americans in the head had become a bad look that wasn't worth it politically. The persistence of this calculus is not inevitable.
As of March 18, 2026, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported that 46 people died while in their custody or detention facilities since the start of the second Trump administration in January 2025. The number of deaths of people in detention during 2025 exceeded the highest seen in over two decades, and deaths in 2026 are on track to meet or exceed that number. President Trump implemented immigration policy changes focused on increasing interior enforcement efforts to support mass deportation, which increased the number of immigrants detained by ICE to over 68,000 as of February 7, 2026, an increase of over 70% from the 39,000 immigrants held in detention at the end of the Biden administration in December 2024.
More than anything, that's the one thing that they want to avoid. That's something that's radicalized at least one person into doing something rash and could radicalize more.
The distraction is not releasing them. If there was enough shit in the files for a conviction, the previous administration would have prosecuted. They were sealed from the public not from the DOJ.
The reality is that there's no shortage of dirt in them (that likely doesn't pile up to guilt beyond a reasonable doubt), but his base doesn't care, and will never care.
Co-conspirators are prosecuted in parallel or semi-parallel all the time, without waiting for the core prosecution to conclude.
There was no reason for why the administration had to wait for the files to be unsealed to go after anyone it wanted to. Unsealing them only makes the records available to the public at large, not the rest of the DOJ.
1) They're not co-conspirators under indictment. It's hard enough getting one conviction on this sort of thing without the likes of Les Wexner throwing a wrench in the process. And to be fair, it seems to have worked: Maxwell seems to be the only person anywhere to be tried, convicted, and incarcerated for the sex trafficking portion of Epstein's operation. The UK has only indicted Andrew and Peter Mandelson for their mishandling of state secrets.
2) The people mentioned as co-conspirators do have the resources to make this "go away" in the realest terms. This is a KGB-like circle of accountability. They don't have to rely on lone wolves with questionable mental state to make their problems disappear. They've got the connections and resources to get a professional to do it, through bribery, intimidation, or worse.
It's possible releasing the files would have negative consequences on both the current and previous administration, which is why neither of them did it.
secret third option: the dirt is still effective as blackmail and thats more valuable to powers that be than prosecution. the fbi acquired all the videos on disc from a safe in wexlers 5th ave mansion, yet no one was arrested for sex crimes, weird!
