I think it’s important to remember that Biden was, perhaps more than any president in my lifetime (and I’m an old man), an institutionalist. He was a senator for just about forever, then the VP for 8 years. He was 78 years old when he became president. He is an old school liberal Catholic, a very nearly extinct person in the Catholic and Christian spheres.

I think he saw his presidency as a repudiation of right wing reactionary politics. His election, in his mind, was in large part a call to what he saw as the original intent and purpose of the executive branch. To put it plainly, he saw himself as elected because America rejected the politicization of government under Trump. Included under that umbrella of beliefs about the purpose of the executive was the unalienable requirement that the executive not direct the FBI to investigate the opposing political party. Remember, Joe Biden was a senator when Nixon resigned. He was there when Nixon was using the executive branch to attack Democrats.

Biden appointed Garland to the DOJ. Garland’s record was perfectly fine and appeared well suited to the role, but his biggest strengths (in Biden’s mind) was his nonpartisanship and his conservative view of government. By conservative I mean staying within the lines of what the DOJ should be doing, a cautious view of the use of DOJ power. Again, this was done in reaction to Trump and his… let’s call it “expansive” view of government power. In Biden’s mind, he was righting the ship.

And Garland was exactly as advertised, to a maddening degree. He was cautious to the point of being timid. He refused to throw the weight of the DOJ into investigations with political implications without reaching an imaginary bar of fairness that just isn’t realistic. You saw it in the Jan 6th investigations. You saw it in the Kushner deals (and all of the Trump family deals which are obviously dirty). You saw it in Garland’s unwillingness to take on wildly politicized federal prosecutor offices because doing so would be political interference (in his mind). You saw it when Robert Hur took unprofessionalism and partisanship to the absolute extreme when attacking Biden under the guise of a special counsel appointment and Garland did nothing because instiutionalism in his mind meant not interfering with the process.

And you saw it in the Epstein case.

Garland did everything by the book to an absurd degree that ended up paralyzing justice. Biden didn’t touch Garland or any of it because he believes doing so was itself an injustice, even if Garland was wrong to handle it the way he did. In Biden’s mind, the president should not have the power to demand the DOJ take action in a specific case like the Epstein case, especially if there’s political implications.

Because people on all sides are probably listed.

1. Donors - some donors are implicated - eg Bill Gates
2. Bill Clinton - Bill Clinton is a known associate, former president
3. Celebrities/Press - Steven Pinker and a lot of the other idiots that dems like to pretend are smart and exceptional are implicated.
4. if Dems released it it would probably be easier for trump etc to dismiss allegations as a smear
5. Dems did prosecute Maxwell but its not clear anyone else can be charged.

Its clearly stupid to not have released a list of epstein’s friends and been like “these people are wanted for questioning”

Why isn’t Trump and the Republican Party doing it now?

Because it could hurt rich people and both parties are on the side of rich people.

Well specifically, it is still an ongoing investigation, so nobody has a “complete set of files to release.”

In February Pam Bondi said she had the first phase of files in her office, made a big public announcement about having requested all remaining files, and said she was waiting on them to be delivered. She even wrote a letter to Kash Patel about it and publicly released the letter.

Then when she read whatever was in that second half of files that got delivered to her, she suddenly wasn’t so eager to release it.

Even more than knowing what is in there about Trump, I would be most interested to know what banks knowingly financed what Epstein was doing. I would guess any bipartisan fears about information in there that could “destroy the country,” is more likely related to banks and corporations that are considered “too big to fail,” rather than any super scandalous information about individuals.

They are also on the list.

Because they are the other side of the same coin as Republicans. Neither side wanna help us much. One side actively trying to make it worse for us while the other one is happy we are living shit but don’t want it worse.

why would they? they have nothing to gain by doing so, and biden didnt run on it.

First, Bill Clinton is almost certainly all over them, and older Democrats still think of the Clintons as the epitome of Democratic success. Some of the old guard is still trying to push focus away from the Epstien files. Just two days ago, Nancy Pelosi was calling the Epstien files a distraction, which is a bat-shit crazy thing to say about evidence that could prove that your opponent was involved in a pedophile ring.

Second, Epstien probably has some sort of ties to the intelligence community. I don’t know that I believe all these stories about him being a secret Mossad asset, but I think its very possible that the someone in the CIA was using him. Alex Acosta, who prosecuted Epstien in 2008, claimed that he was told to back off because he, “belonged to intelligence,” and they’re clearly withholding a lot of information, there’s definitely something they don’t want people to know. Anyway, since 9/11, the Democrats and Republicans have had basically the same position on the intelligence community (essentially, abject deference), so if the CIA says that it would be a national security risk to release the files, the Democrats aren’t going to release the files.

Is English your first language?

The give reason must be procedual, but the real reason is that the Epstein files undoubtedly also contain the names of democrats or democratic backers. They were more than happy doing nothing with those files.

Because a bunch of them are also child rapists

My guess is, because Republican leaders and propaganda outlets were constantly accusing Democrats of witch hunts and politically motivated criminal investigations, Dems releasing Epstein’s client list would have been seen as more of the same. Trump’s base would have absolutely called it fake news. So Dems waited until Republicans were in control and then said, “Okay, now you can release it.” With predictable results.

I think one reason is that democrats wanted to do things by the book, and they didn’t want to be accused of tampering with the 2024 election, more than trump already did.