I have not written much about the Epstein files and the recently released trove of emails between Jeffrey Epstein and Trump and other various well-known people because it is being covered so extensively in the media. Susan Glasser writes in The New Yorker that the Epstein emails are becoming a chronic problem for Trump.

On Capitol Hill, the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, kept the chamber in recess from mid-September to mid-November in what seemed to be a transparent effort to block a vote on releasing the Justice Department files. This, I’ve long thought, should have been more of a scandal in its own right—Congress closing for business for weeks and weeks because a Speaker was running interference on behalf of a President who didn’t want more details to emerge of his dealings with a sleazy dead rich guy who had sex with underage women on his private island? How was that not a bigger deal?

But, in order to end the longest-ever government shutdown, Johnson had to give in this week and order the House to return to work. That meant swearing in a new Democratic member who had won a special election in September; she quickly became the two-hundred-and-eighteenth signatory of the discharge petition that will now force Johnson to hold a floor vote on releasing the files.

Given how bad this already looks, I am puzzled by Trump and his supporters going to such desperate lengths to prevent the release of the so-called Epstein files, to the extent that the Trump team is pressurizing congressional supporters Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace to remove their names from the discharge petition to be voted on by the House of Representatives this coming Tuesday.

Under the current GOP plan, the House Rules Committee would approve a procedural measure Monday night to advance eight bills for floor consideration, including language to tee up the Epstein legislation. If that measure is approved on the floor, likely early Tuesday afternoon, debate and a final vote on the Epstein bill could immediately follow. GOP leaders are considering whether to postpone the Epstein vote until Tuesday evening.

Trump has also attacked Marjorie Taylor Greene, who used to be one of his most loyal supporters, so harshly even calling her a traitor and a lunatic, that she says that she has received threats from his supporters.

Trump has also attacked GOP congressperson Thomas Massie, who has been one of the leaders of the move to release the files. The vote has to be passed by the House and then the Senate and, if that happens, then vote to override a certain Trump veto, which would require a two-thirds majority in both houses. Massie says that he expects enough Republicans to vote in favor that it would be veto-proof. He also says that ht thinks that Trump’s poodle as attorney general Pam Bondi re-opening investigations into the Epstein files may be a smokescreen in order to delay the release.

The motion directs the department of justice to release the files, so presumably that is the agency that has them. But who are the people in the agency who know its contents? Trump has to know, of course. But the investigations into Epstein have been over many years, stretching back into the Biden years. So there have to be a lot of people, both political appointees and career people, who have at least some idea of what it contains.

There are several things that puzzle me. One is why so many Republicans are eager to have the files released, since it is assumed that it will be damaging to Trump and they are generally either deeply loyal to him or are afraid of him. Have they suddenly developed a desire for exposing the abuses of a pedophile and bringing the abusers to justice? Are they just curious to find out? Or do they think that there will be damaging information on Democrats as well?

Also, how much worse can the files be for Trump than what the emails have shown? What might they contain? What puzzles me is that we have long known that Trump’s attitudes towards women is appalling. The Epstein reporting so far shows that he did not have any problems consorting with a known pedophile and enjoyed having young women and girls parading around in Epstein’s residences skimpy attire. They haven’t revealed that Trump did anything more than ogle them. Trump’s cult followers largely do not seem to care. So what could the files contain that warrants such attempts at secrecy?

Perhaps they contain incriminating photographic and/or video evidence of abuse. But if we want to indulge in deep tactical speculation, it may also be that the Trump team are going to great lengths to suppress the release of the files knowing that that will create major expectations that they contain bombshell revelations. Then when they reveal just more of the same things we have heard so far, people will be disappointed, shrug their shoulders, and move on, rather than demanding action on the abuses they reveal.

But I don’t really know and can only speculate.

Troy Iwata of The Daily Show points to one feature of the Epstein emails that has been largely overlooked.