The File That Wouldn’t Stay Dead

By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News

Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — February 25, 2026

This concerns the continuing release and fallout surrounding the Epstein files.

I have covered riots, hurricanes, and one city council meeting that required a police escort and three aspirin.

None of them behaved like this file.

This file refuses to die.

Every time someone declares it closed, archived, resolved, or legally satisfied, it coughs up another name, another document, another inconvenient timestamp.

You’d think paper would be quiet.

Paper is never quiet.

The latest batch dribbled out like a reluctant confession. Pages. Memos. Flight logs. Footnotes that read like travel brochures written by the morally impaired.

Officials insist there is nothing new.

Officials always insist there is nothing new.

If nothing is new, why are so many people holding press conferences?

I asked that question once.

I was told I lacked nuance.

What I lack is patience.

The story stretches across borders now. The United States studies it. The United Kingdom studies it. Other jurisdictions study the study.

Everyone is studying.

No one appears to be sprinting.

Maybe sprinting is undignified.

Maybe justice prefers loafers.

Here’s what makes this file different.

It doesn’t growl.

It doesn’t leap out of alleys.

It sits on desks.

It waits.

It allows very important people to say very careful things into very expensive microphones.

Then it releases another page.

You want monsters? You won’t find fangs.

You’ll find scheduling conflicts.

You’ll find statements about cooperation.

You’ll find phrases like “ongoing review.”

Ongoing review is the aspirin of scandal. It reduces fever without curing infection.

Some crimes cross borders.

When crimes cross borders, treaties wake up.

Treaties stretch. They yawn. They request documentation in triplicate.

Meanwhile, the file continues to move.

Not fast.

Not loudly.

But persistently.

I’ve learned something about stories like this.

They do not explode.

They erode.

Public attention erodes.

Political will erodes.

Reputations erode.

And occasionally — just occasionally — insulation erodes.

When insulation erodes, someone who thought they were protected discovers that protection has a warranty.

Warranties expire.

You won’t hear that at a press conference.

You won’t read that in a prepared statement.

But you will see it in the margins.

And I read margins.

Because margins are where the truth hides when the headlines get nervous.

The file isn’t finished.

Not because it’s dramatic.

Not because it’s mythical.

But because it keeps touching more territory than anyone is comfortable admitting.

If crimes were committed across jurisdictions, those jurisdictions can act.

If they choose to.

Choice is the quietest word in this entire affair.

The file doesn’t stay dead.

It doesn’t have to.

It just has to remain.

And remaining is sometimes enough.