During the 2024 election, President Trump promised to release the Epstein files as part of a campaign message arguing the government was run by powerful people hiding the truth from Americans. At the start of 2026, many people agree — and believe that he is now one of the powerful few keeping the public in the dark. In the two weeks since the Justice Department failed to fully meet a legal deadline to release its expansive tranche of files on Jeffrey Epstein, old conspiracy theories about his life and death have subsided and new ones have taken shape. The late...