It’s now been nearly three weeks since the Justice Department was required, by law, to publish all the Epstein files in its possession. And look, they’re getting around to it, okay? It’s just taking a bit longer than they’d thought. In a court filing yesterday, department lawyers said that 12,285 documents have already been released. Only 2 million or so more to go. Happy Tuesday.

January 6th Never Ended

by Andrew Egger

Five years! Half a decade ago today, Donald Trump summoned his angriest, most loyal fans from across America to Washington, D.C., with a call to arms and a fervent plea: They’re trying to steal the country from us, and they’ll get away with it, unless we stop them. They assembled on the National Mall, their frustration and rage crackling in the air, waiting to be told what to do. Trump whipped them into a frenzy, sent them marching down to the Capitol, and waited.

Last week, an excellent New York Times editorial described the insurrection of January 6th as a riot that never ended—“a turning point, but not the one it first seemed to be.” To some, it felt like an ending, the final, violent death spasms of the cult of Trump—so much so that the Senate Republicans who could have slammed the door on him forever deluded themselves into thinking he would stay gone without their having to lift a finger.

Instead, it proved to be the dawn of Trump’s total liberation. He had stress-tested his own theory of his base: that they would swallow insane, ludicrous election lies simply because he asked them to, would march themselves into felonies because they thought he wanted them to, and would then sit in their jail cells, not disillusioned but unshaken in their faith in him, patiently awaiting the day of his return and their reward. Eventually, they got it.

Ever since, Trump has lived his life in accordance with the lessons he learned that day. There was no act of selfishness or vindictiveness too grotesque for him to survive, provided he kept his people adequately juiced in the belief that their enemies were worse—and provided he could claw his way back to actual, hard power.

So it’s true: We’ve never left the January 6th era. But what’s most staggering is how