Deadline-day release of Epstein files has White House media management written all over it

Can it be a coincidence that US planes attacked Syria around the very time the Epstein files were released? It would be cynical - but then again, it would be how politics works.

The deadline-day release of the Epstein files had White House media management written all over it, unredacted. Initial searches for Trump's name within the Department of Justice search function returned nothing, while the presence of former president Bill Clinton, on the other hand, was everywhere.

It is PR strategy 101 - front-load the release of documents with the Democrat stuff and save any possible Trump content for a soft landing sometime between Christmas and New Year. Epstein files latest: What we found inside - as critics accuse 'document dump' of breaking law By that time, the public will have softened its focus on the story - it's what the festive season does.

The presence of celebrity in the latest release might also feather Trump's bed. It's clear that iconic superstars like Mick Jagger and Diana Ross were courted by Epstein as innocents, ignorant of his criminality.

To see them in the files cements a narrative of a monster who lured the unsuspecting into his orbit. We support Jagger and Ross as treasured icons, so we remind ourselves that simply being included in the files doesn't equate to wrongdoing or knowledge of it.

In turn, it shapes an empathy around the predicament that will extend to Trump and, perhaps, the benefit of any doubt. Of course, not everyone will see it that way - the people who see a cynical exercise in delay and obfuscation, constituting a gross insult to the Epstein survivors at the heart of the story.

Read more:Mystery text quoting price for 'girl' included in new picturesTrump administration criticised over partial Epstein files release For all the talk (by the Trump administration) of a tight time scale and a willingness to act transparently, survivors and their supporters point out that Donald Trump could have published all the Epstein files long ago, never mind drip feed them with wide-ranging redactions. Not to have done so is an affront to them and an attempt to evade accountability.

For all the talk about the release of the files, their significance is undermined by the lack of context. We are shown pictures and documents that reflect the life of a thoroughly unpleasant individual who inflicted suffering on an industrial scale.

But with redactions, and without explanations, we are left having to join the dots in an effort to establish criminal behaviour and blame. It is a level of uncertainty surrounding the Epstein files and a source of dissatisfaction to survivors, for whom justice further delayed is justice further denied..