Is this the end of the Jeffrey Epstein case?

The death of the financier and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein at Manhattan’s notorious Metropolitan Correction Center has been ruled to be a suicide, and one that took place entirely by Epstein’s own hand, without any external interference. At least, that’s the story according to the Department of Justice and the FBI, who have also announced for good measure that the so-called Epstein Files, which supposedly contained the details of his high-profile clients, do not exist. After the disappointment of the decidedly low-profile release of the JFK-assassination files earlier this year, this is a second blow for conspiracy theorists who have been assured by the government that there is definitely, 100 percent nothing to see here. Will this be enough for them?

The DoJ have certainly done their job, or so they say. They claimed that the review included an examination of over 300 gigabytes of data and that the FBI conducted “digital searches of its databases, hard drives and network drives as well as physical searches of squad areas, locked cabinets, desks, closets, and other areas where responsive material” related to Epstein “may have been stored.” They have undoubtedly unearthed scandalous and depraved footage – “a large volume of images of Epstein, images and videos of victims who are either minors or appear to be minors, and over ten thousand downloaded videos and images of illegal child sex-abuse material and other pornography.” But the agency “found no basis to revisit the disclosure” of information related to those materials, their memo asserted.

The agencies did release prison footage, however, which showed that nobody had access to Epstein’s cell, either before or after his death, and this was believed to be credible and undoctored; enough, at any rate, for the DoJ to suggest that its investigators “did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.” So, to recap: no client list, no evidence of anyone surreptitiously murdering Epstein in his cell and no reason to keep the story alive. That’ll do it.

Obviously, it will not. Elon Musk has already tweeted his displeasure, posting an image on X of “The Official Jeffrey Epstein Pedophile Arrest Counter” set at zero; he caustically captioned it “What’s the time? Oh look, it’s no-one-has-been-arrested-o’clock again.” Musk’s parting shot at Donald Trump when he left his employment was to suggest that Trump himself was in the Epstein files, something he called “the really big bomb,” and the idea that these files have been suppressed, as well as the true murderer of Epstein, will remain catnip to conspiracy theorists and the suspicious alike.

They will point to such details as the FBI’s director and deputy director, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino respectively, both expressing earlier skepticism as to the suicide theory – which, admittedly, they have now embraced – and Pam Bondi, the attorney general, promising that there would be “bombshell” new evidence about Epstein’s A-list celebrity connections. At one point, it looked as if a vast conspiracy was set to unfold that would bring down politicians, royalty, Hollywood and billionaires, but this has now been shut down by the latest findings.

Such an ugly, sprawling story, which has directly seen the imprisonment of Ghislaine Maxwell and indirectly led to the death of Virginia Roberts Giuffre, is too untidy to be packaged up as neatly as the DoJ would have liked. The conspiracy theory will surely be that the video has been doctored and that the incriminating logs of Epstein’s co-conspirators have been suppressed, despite the protestations of the government.

There is also the difficulty that Donald Trump has now made several promises about transparency that do not look as if they are being met. The President is skilled in conjuring attention-grabbing, often factually tenuous claims (remember the brouhaha about Obama’s birth certificate?) that have generally been seized upon by his MAGA base with great glee, whatever the official results of an investigation. In this instance, however, the fact that the government have come out with a “nothing to see her, case closed” judgment on such a febrile and controversial affair is likely to cause a great deal of disappointment and anger. I suspect that this saga is going to run and run, much as it might suit some people’s interests to make it go away quietly. Who these people are remains unclear – for the moment.