A swap-out was my first thought, even before Arkancide. If they let him live this long there must be a reason for someone to want him alive.
Swap out would serve several purposes:
1. Keep him silent to protect special people from what he knows but can only be revealed by his testimony. They already have enough evidence in lists and minor player testimony to put the squeeze on a bunch of people without his testimony. That is what the honey pot operation was all about. Get evidence to squeeze people, find out who could be bought, find out what they know that may be useful even if they don’t partake of the trinkets offered, Implicate by association. It was an intel and blackmail operation.
2. It is his handlers who are being protected in a quid-pro-quo but having him dead loses any leverage. Keeping him quiet makes friends and curries favor but you have to get to him to save him before they get to him to kill him. Both sides want him out of the way just in different ways.
3. He has had handlers for a long time who put him in business and where he was. He didn’t go from his humble beginnings and a non-degreed math and science teacher to an exclusive hedge fund manager to billionaires all on his own so fast and so far. He had lots of help but for the purpose of building a sting operation.
4. Who is keeping him alive? Probably our government but probably rogue elements of our government. I doubt Trump knows a thing. Epstein is alive somewhere and will remain that way as long as whoever is keeping him alive needs leverage.