Trump thinks he’s going to get away with this

The Epstein files were legally required to be released, but Trump is burying them anyway.

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After years of promises about transparency, the Trump administration believes it has successfully buried the Epstein files. And based on what we have seen over the last several months, it is not hard to understand why they think they can get away with it.

This month’s so-called release of the Epstein files was anything but transparency. It was a performance.

Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required disclosure with only narrow, clearly defined redactions. The names of minors, victims, and individuals actively under investigation were to be protected. That was it.

Instead, the public received pages of documents so heavily blacked out that they were not only functionally useless but at times laughable. Entire pages blacked out and redacted.

Then something even more alarming happened. Files began disappearing from the Department of Justice website entirely. There was no announcement, just Poof! Missing files.

That is evidence control.

What the Law Required Versus What We Got

The law did not make disclosure optional.

The order was explicit: Documents were to be released with limited redactions and made publicly available.

What we got was the opposite. Over-redaction where the law did not allow or call for it. Documents are being withheld without justification while files are being quietly removed after publication.

At the same time, the White House was doing something else that matters just as much: actively seeding misleading material into the public conversation.

The deputy press secretary posted an image implying that Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson, and Diana Ross were pictured with Epstein victims. The photo was not what it was presented as. It was a publicly available fundraiser image showing Jackson’s and Ross’s own children. They tried to paint these people as predators by manipulating photos with their very own children. Insanity.

That was narrative manipulation.

How This Strategy Works

On one side, legally mandated documents are being hidden, redacted beyond what the law allows, or removed altogether. On the other side, misleading and outright false material is being amplified to redirect attention toward political opponents.

That combination is a deeply unsettling strategy.

There is a saying about not attributing to malice what can be explained by incompetence. In this case, incompetence does not explain what we are seeing; the coordination is too precise and the outcomes are too convenient.

This is about controlling the story while violating the law quietly enough that most people do not notice.

The Trump Redaction Problem

Here is a detail that matters:

Donald Trump is not a victim in these files and should have no reason for redactions. He is not a minor, and according to what we have been told, he is not under active investigation.

And yet his name is redacted in places where other names are not.

Meanwhile, figures that Trump wants the public to focus on remain visible through photos, names highlighted in briefings, and more. Selective disclosure becomes narrative laundering.

Trump is betting on what he always bets on: exhaustion, distraction and confusion. He wants the public arguing about personalities instead of process.

He signed the law and his own Department of Justice is now violating it. He is betting on the idea that most people will not stick with the story long enough to connect those dots.

Why a Leak May Be the Only Way

If the full Epstein files were ever going to be released through official channels, we would already have them.

History tells us how this usually ends. The Pentagon Papers did not surface because the government suddenly chose honesty and NSA surveillance was not exposed because officials embraced transparency.

Those stories came out because someone inside decided the cover-up was worse than the exposure.

At this point, a leak may be the only way the full truth comes out. Trump is betting that no one will do it because he believes the files are buried deeply enough that they will stay buried.

What Is Actually at Stake

This is not just about Epstein.

If a president can be legally required to release documents, sign that requirement into law, and then still suppress the information through redactions, removals, and misinformation, then accountability becomes optional.

Once accountability is optional, the rule of law becomes merely a suggestion.

We will continue examining individual documents, missing files, and altered postings. The details matter, and they will continue to matter, but the big picture is already clear.

Trump believes he has gotten away with this.

And if the public allows that belief to become reality, the damage goes far beyond this one set of files.

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