This week, President Trump’s uncanny political instincts resulted in a near-unanimous congressional resolution forcing his administration, against its collective will, to release the Epstein files.

Thirty-six hours before his impending loss, Trump announced on social media: “House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files.” One imagines Trump murmuring, Now I’ve got them right where they want me.

Why doesn’t he just release them? This is like filing a lawsuit asking the court to rule against you.

Big victory, but I’m already bracing for another Al Capone’s vault fiasco.

Recall that, after Jeffrey Epstein was arrested in 2019 at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, the FBI searched his New York residence for 12 hours. They found what most of us have: a buried safe in a fifth-floor dressing room. The agents sawed it open and discovered cash, diamonds, fake passports — and binders of CDs containing photos of naked girls, carefully labeled with the girls’ names as well as the names of “third parties.”

Then they left, walking away from the biggest collection of incriminating evidence since Nuremberg.

When Special Agent Kelly Maguire (“special” in every way) returned to the house days later — surprise! — the binders were gone. They had been carted off by Epstein’s accountant, Richard Kahn, who apparently had NO IDEA, NONE! that the FBI might be interested in a vast trove of photos stored in a pedophile’s safe.

Maguire said she didn’t remove the photos the first time because the search warrant did not allow it. (Nor, apparently, did it allow her to secure the premises.) If this is true, the most titillating document in the Epstein files may be a search warrant that failed to mention “evidence of a crime.”

It’s difficult to believe this was mere incompetence, even from a female law enforcement officer.

By now, the government has had a 20-year head start on “losing” evidence in the Epstein case. Our only consolation is that destroying evidence is a serious crime, aggressively prosecuted and punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Otherwise, everyone would do it.

Is the Trump administration going to keep playing games and redact everything interesting from the files?

Only if they’re incredibly stupid. So the answer is yes.

Rep. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna’s tightly written resolution includes only five grounds for redactions: A) a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy of the victims, B) depictions of child abuse, C) interfering with an ongoing investigation, D) depictions of physical abuse and E) national defense.

Exemptions B and D seem about the same to me, in the sense that this is the very heart of the matter: Epstein and his coterie of deviants subjected underage girls to physical and sexual abuse. What exactly did Epstein and friends do to the adolescents that wasn’t “physical abuse”?

If you sexually molested an underage girl, you’re not a victim, you’re a perpetrator. Invading your privacy is not “unwarranted,” but “extremely warranted.”

The only things that should be redacted are the victims’ faces and private parts. The abusers’ faces should be enlarged, sharp and clear. If Pam Bondi’s DOJ doesn’t know how to do this, she should call The Daily Mail’s photo editors. Or consult with any 8-year-old.

As for the “ongoing investigation” exception, Bondi’s sudden decision to investigate various Democrats involved with Epstein this past Friday night — at Trump’s request — defies the meaning of “ongoing.”

Since July, right up until Friday night, Bondi has strenuously maintained that, after a thorough examination of the Epstein files, she was unable to “uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation” against anyone except Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

If an 11th-hour announcement of an “investigation” could defeat a request for documents, the government would never have to produce any documents — not to Congress, not pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request, not in a private lawsuit.

Finally, I’d love to hear an explanation of how covering up a pedophile ring serves our national defense. As Cary Grant says to the head of intelligence in the movie “North by Northwest,” “If you fellows can’t lick [our enemies] without asking girls like her to bed down with them … perhaps you ought to start learning how to lose a few cold wars.”

Are we finally going to get the names of Epstein’s co-conspirators?

Probably not. Epstein’s pedophile ring was broken by the Palm Beach Police in 2005. It’s taken 20 years to be this close to getting the names of the participants and government accomplices. Something’s been blocking the release of this information.

There’s never been another case like this, and hopefully there won’t be again. But if we can’t get to the bottom of the cover-up this time, there’s no reason for hope.

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