In the week and a half since the Justice Department released a memo saying there’s no evidence that indicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was murdered, that he never kept a “client list,” and that the department doesn’t plan on releasing any new documents on the matter, the calls from across the political spectrum to “release the Epstein Files” have only grown louder.

Rep. Hank Johnson, a Democrat from Georgia, released a video of himself performing a parody of Jason Isbell’s “Dreamsicle.” In the video, he sings in a higher register than his normally bellowing voice, “Epstein died by suicide. Believe that and you must be blind. You’ve been telling us you’ll release the files, but where are they?”

House Speaker Mike Johnson had this to say about the so-called Epstein Files in an interview with conservative influencer and commentator Benny Johnson: “I agree with the sentiment that we need to put it out there.”

And of course there’s the far-right political provocateur, podcaster, and conspiracy theorist Steve Bannon, who told conservatives at Turning Point USA’s “Student Action Summit” in Tampa, Florida, over the weekend that the “Epstein Files” could help uncover more than just individual offenses: “Epstein is a key that picks the lock on so many things, not just individuals, but also institutions, intelligence institutions, foreign governments, and who is working with him on our intelligence apparatus and in our government,” he said.

The only folks who seemingly don’t want to release the full findings of the investigation into Epstein are the two people who could snap their fingers and make them public: Attorney General Pam Bondi and President Donald Trump.

To understand what’s going on, Today, Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram spoke with Elie Honig, a former federal and state prosecutor and author of the upcoming book, When You Come at the King: Inside DOJ’s Pursuit of the President, From Nixon to Trump.

You can read an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity, below, and listen to the full episode of Today, Explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.

If you’re someone out there who’s like, “release the Epstein Files,” who should they be most mad at right now that they don’t have their Epstein Files?

I’m going to answer with a “what” rather than a “who.” The first thing they should be mad at is an ancient DOJ policy that says, we DOJ, we federal prosecutors, do not just make public our closed investigative files........

© Vox