My take on this: Trump learns that the files are either gone or clearly tampered with, likely after the initial Bondi gaff and the NY office revelation. So he tries to just end things so he can focus on things that have a more immediate effect on the country(cutting illegal numbers, revving up the economy, ect.) Of course, he knows his enemies will try to drag things out to make him look bad so he waits for them to start publishing bullshit like the birthday letter and springs the trap.
What if...
A thought experiment taking a "assume stupidity not malice" angle: why do the files have to be gone or tampered with? What if a huge amount of it just isn't very believable and probably shouldn't be in a casefile about a supposed pedophile mastermind?
Where I'm going with this is "what set of facts would lead to thinking a perceived cover-up is the better course of action than releasing the casefile,
but is also stupid as hell?"
There's only two parties that really know what's in that casefile, the government, and Epstein. Epstein's dead, but he knew what they had, or perhaps
what they didn't have (having personal knowledge of his own debauchery) and could infer what else they must have as a result of the developing narrative, before he went. At trial the government can pick and choose what to present to get specific convictions (and something tells me they had enough to do that), but they can't pick and choose without looking like they're covering up if they don't just fucking drop
everything when he's "killed himself" and no trial occurs, given the narrative surrounding Epstein.
The ultimate narc's revenge would be killing yourself like a melodramatic faggot before trial to cause an inevitable cascade where the people that toppled you either end up with egg on their face in a big way for taking a way less than measured approach to what all went into the case, or look like they're covering up for a pedophile mastermind and his clients, and the only actual win scenario they have is to take him to trial alive where they can more easily control the narrative surrounding his wrongdoings. Consider that the FBI took a bunch of credibility hits as well prior to Trump's admin, and nobody really wants to be the ones holding a dodgy hot potato of a case that makes an agency look like boobs that took fanfiction seriously in the pedophile mastermind trafficker case.
A perceived cover-up at least makes it look like the FBI did good work to end up with facts that need covering up.
A stupid meandering of the mind? Probably.
But it can explain some of the more bizarre contradictions like the most obvious edited video release in history, and "stupid" describes everyone's handling of this across two opposing administrations so I'm beginning to wonder if it has less to do with powerful clients and more to do with an hinky casefile that has enough to prove some serious crimes, but nowhere near what everyone thinks is in there.
