The Justice Department asked a federal judge this afternoon to unseal grand jury testimony from the prosecution of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. President Trump had requested the move in an effort to dispel a storm of criticism and conspiracy theories coming from many of his supporters.

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.