The attorney general plans to ask a court to release the papers. But even if the request succeeds, it would fall far short of critics’ demands to release all investigative materials.

Those factors, applied to the Epstein saga, appear muddled at best. Trump has called for “pertinent” grand jury records to come out. And one of the arguments DOJ previously made against disclosures was that it could damage the purported victims of Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking conspiracy, many of whom are still alive.

A Wall Street Journal report late Thursday added new scrutiny to President Donald Trump’s relationship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.