By Ned Seaton, The Manhattan Mercury, Kan. The Tribune Content Agency

I’ve said in this space before that it seemed highly unlikely for any further crimes to be uncovered by the release of the Epstein files. I still basically believe that, because lots of prosecutors from both sides of the political aisle have had their shot at the information already. So why bother? What’s the point of all this?

Fair question. The answer is that the truth does matter. Facts eventually make a difference. Just because nobody else will end up in jail does not mean that the truth was irrelevant. Whew. That’s a triple-negative, so let me try to illustrate the point better. What has emerged from the documents disclosed so far is a picture of a secret world of the rich and powerful in which they engaged in winks and nods about the way Epstein could arrange secret sexual encounters, at a minimum. They gave Epstein advice about handling bad public relations, and they swapped favors for each other involving private jets and financial matters; they asked him for relationship advice. Even after his conviction! And even after the Miami Herald revealed the big picture. None of those things are crimes.

Cheating on your wife with a Ukrainian woman arranged by Epstein is not against the law. Regularly yukking it up over e-mail with a convicted sex criminal is not, in and of itself, a criminal offense. Failing to blow the whistle when you had reason to suspect sex crimes? Well, that’s getting closer to a violation of the law. Given his comment about how Epstein “likes them on the younger side,” my sense is that this is where our current President falls on the spectrum. Not an attractive picture, but probably not a criminal offense. And even his biggest supporters already knew that the current President is no paragon of personal virtue; if you voted for him knowing that he said he could “grab ’em by the p-y,” and knowing that he paid hush money to a porn star to cover up their relationship, you obviously don’t make that a priority.

So why does this matter? Because the truth matters. It mattered when journalists uncovered working conditions in factories in the 19th Century, even though those revelations didn’t send anybody to jail. Facts and knowledge led to reforms. It mattered when the Washington Post uncovered the Watergate conspiracy. It mattered when the Boston Globe revealed the priest sex abuse scandal. It mattered when the Pentagon Papers saw the light of day, because then the public could know the truth about Vietnam. More knowledge is better than less. Incidentally, I have always maintained that all police investigative files should become public record – that is, subject to disclosure upon request – after the investigation is finished. If there are victims’ names that ought to be redacted, fine. But, in the interest of public knowledge, more is better than less. The Epstein case is just the highest-profile example. Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.

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