The best theory that I’ve seen is that it’s because he wants support from the Trump administration, so he has basically taken the line “The problem with Epstein is that he was a Jew. Doing all of this as a white Christian would have been based.” There’s no denying Trump’s involvement unless you are genuinely senile or something, so he’s forced into a position that lets him at least implicitly whitewash the participation of people like Trump if he wants to maximize the support he gets, by his estimation. Just a theory, though.