Ankush Khardori is a senior writer for POLITICO Magazine and a former federal prosecutor at the Department of Justice. His column, Rules of Law, offers an unvarnished look at national legal affairs and the political dimensions of the law at a moment when the two are inextricably linked.

The president gets low marks for his handling of the scandal. But polls suggest other issues are driving the popularity dip.

We don’t yet know the full story of the Trump administration’s sudden reluctance to release the Jeffrey Epstein files. Its reversal appears to have coincided with the president being told his name appeared in the files,