The “Epstein files” are maybe, finally, coming out — or at least, some of them are.

Friday is the deadline for the Justice Department to disclose materials from its two investigations into deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein after Congress passed a bill last month requiring it to do so within 30 days. There are still questions about what materials could be withheld or redacted, but it’s extremely likely we’ll see something.

Ahead of that deadline, I spoke with my colleague Andrew Prokop for Vox’s daily newsletter, Today, Explained. We talked about how the Epstein scandal took over the second Trump administration, what could be released, and more. Our conversation, edited for length and clarity, is below, and you can sign up for the newsletter here for more conversations like this.

How did this become the all-consuming story of the Trump administration?

They really did it to themselves. No one was really talking about the Epstein case anymore except for a relatively small group of highly engaged online right-wingers who deeply believed there was a vast conspiracy the government was covering up, and that if Trump won the 2024 election, he could blow the lid off that conspiracy.

Then Trump wins, and his attorney general, Pam Bondi, tries to pander to these right-wing influencers by inviting them to the White House and giving them these binders that were supposedly the Epstein files, and they contain absolutely nothing new. It’s a huge embarrassment, and it raises the question of, kind of like,........

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