The Epstein Files Data Forensic Investigation #1 (Howard Lutnick, the Missing Files, the Corrupted Videos, and the Broken DOJ UI)

Let’s run through some of the latest findings. The big one making the headlines is Howard Lutnick showing up again in the Epstein Files. Here he is on the island. This is Document ID 1,230,639 (currently available via direct link here). It’s also become clear he had ongoing business dealings with Epstein (who was literally his neighbor in NYC).

This is in Data Set 9. If you read our original reporting on the structure of the Epstein Files, you would realize this is part of the files “hidden” behind a broken interface.

Basically each Data Set is available in their own folder. Here is Data Set 9’s. Anyone deeply familiar with a “user interface” will notice something off about Data Set 9. There is no pagination (separating long lists into multiple pages) for Data Set 9. This is also striking because Data Set 9 is HUGE. Going from Document ID 39,025 to over 1,600,000, this is the biggest set of documents.

Here is what Data Set 8 looks like at the bottom of the first page.

Here is Data Set 10 (on “page 3000”)

But on Data Set 9, no such functionality exists.

This is a huge RED FLAG for anyone doing forensic work. Something is off here. And only here.

This means that one cannot scroll through various pages of documents. This then means that one can’t see alternate file types or missing files in the list.

However, this is a way around that. As noted in that previous write-up, I have written scripts that mimic human behavior to download all files. These scripts now do a number of things. One, you can now pass a Document ID, and it will begin searching that Data Set at that Document ID and incrementally look from there. This is how I searched *around* the Lutnick photo above and discovered there are thousands of missing documents. We cover it in the first piece, but we discovered a pattern for various file types and have been able to download files of types, “.mp4”, “.mov”,”.wav”,”.mp3″,”.xlsx”,”.csv”, “.m4a” all automatically via the scripts.

Understand, these documents are listed sequentially and ALL of them should be there. They can be redacted, but they should be there.

As you look at this listing of downloaded files, you’ll see big gaps, like 1,228,929-1,229,101 where 180 documents are missing.

Then from 1,229,101 – 1,230,369 we are missing OVER a THOUSAND DOCUMENTS!

This pattern continues above 1,230,852 through *at least* 1,237,872 (over SEVEN THOUSAND MISSING DOCUMENTS!).

Just nothing there.

And you can’t see these in the web interface either, as pagination doesn’t work.

That bring us to the videos. After seeing the Lutnick photo, I began search both up and down the chain for other files. When I started heading down, I hit some video files.

These are preceded by this document (Document ID 1227044), which seems to indicate the source. (HD1, US V. JEFFREY EPST…)