> I think the real question is why didn't the Biden administration release the files. How many very powerful people left and right are in there?

If I had to guess it's because there's nothing incriminating about Trump in them. Otherwise we all know they would have been leaked a long time ago.

tl;dr: Because there were ongoing investigations (which was true) and it's generally considered bad to release your evidence before trial, or something like that, IANAL.

This will also be Trump's (false) reason for not releasing them.

Why was t true before but false now?

I suspect it's been the false reason the whole time.

No one is investigating anything, only wiping hard drives and tying up loose ends

IMO the most egregious reason is the July 2025 memo from DOJ/FBI saying there was nobody else to investigate, after months of public interest and official statements they were working on it. If they now flop back to claiming they can’t release because of investigations, then that’s unequivocally a false reason.