Epstein File Explorer

A public record explorer for the Jeffrey Epstein case files released by the U.S. Department of Justice. Browse, search, and analyze documents across 12 data sets including court filings, depositions, FBI reports, flight logs, financial records, and more.

Live at epstein-file-explorer.com

Features

• Document Browser — Paginated, filterable view of all documents with PDF/image/video viewers, redaction status, AI-generated summaries, and keyboard navigation (prev/next)
• Document Comparison — Side-by-side document comparison view
• Full-Text Page Search — Search across 3.5M+ extracted document pages with highlighted snippets and direct page links
• People Directory — 200+ named individuals with categories (key figures, associates, victims, witnesses, legal, political), document counts, and connection counts
• Person Profiles — Card-based overview with AI-generated summaries, background sections, key facts, top contacts, email counts, and linked timeline events
• Wikipedia Integration — Automated person data enrichment from Wikipedia, including profile photos displayed in the network graph
• Network Graph — Interactive D3 force-directed graph visualizing connections between persons, with category/connection-type filtering, time range slider, keyword search, and Wikipedia profile photos
• Timeline — 5,400+ chronological events with significance scoring, linked to people and documents
• Cross-Entity Search — Search across documents, people, and events with saved searches, search history, and bookmarks
• AI Insights — DeepSeek-powered analysis extracting persons, connections, events, locations, key facts, and document classifications from extracted text
• Export — JSON and CSV export for documents, persons, and search results
• Dark/Light Theme — Full theme support with system preference detection

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Frontend	React 18, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, shadcn/ui, Radix UI, D3.js, Recharts, Framer Motion
Routing	Wouter
Data	TanStack React Query
Backend	Express 5, TypeScript, Drizzle ORM, Zod
Database	PostgreSQL (with full-text search indexes)
Storage	Cloudflare R2 (documents), local filesystem (staging)
AI	DeepSeek API (document analysis, person classification)
Deployment	Fly.io (US East), Docker multi-stage build

Data Sources

• Data origin: U.S. Department of Justice — official public releases of case files across 12 data sets
• Distribution: yung-megafone/Epstein-Files — community archive preserving publicly released materials via torrents after DOJ removed several data sets (9, 10, 11) from their site in February 2026
• Person data: Wikipedia — scraped and enriched with AI classification for categories, roles, and occupations

All data in this project comes from publicly released government records.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+
• PostgreSQL
• aria2 (for torrent downloads): brew install aria2

Setup

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Configure environment
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your PostgreSQL connection string, R2 credentials, DeepSeek API key

# Push database schema
npm run db:push

# Start development server
npm run dev

The app runs on port 3000 in development (port 5000 in production).

Environment Variables

Variable	Description
DATABASE_URL	PostgreSQL connection string
R2_ACCOUNT_ID	Cloudflare R2 account ID
R2_ACCESS_KEY_ID	R2 access key
R2_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY	R2 secret key
R2_BUCKET_NAME	R2 bucket name
R2_PUBLIC_URL	R2 public URL for serving documents
DEEPSEEK_API_KEY	DeepSeek API key for AI analysis

Pipeline

The data pipeline handles downloading, processing, and analyzing documents:

scrape-wikipedia → download-torrent → import-downloads → upload-r2 → process →
classify-media → analyze-ai → load-persons → load-documents →
load-ai-results → extract-connections → update-counts → dedup-persons

Running Pipeline Stages

# Run a specific stage
npx tsx scripts/pipeline/run-pipeline.ts <stage>

# Download specific data sets via torrent
npx tsx scripts/pipeline/run-pipeline.ts download-torrent --data-sets 1,3,8

# Run all stages
npx tsx scripts/pipeline/run-pipeline.ts all

Pipeline Stages

Stage	Description
scrape-wikipedia	Scrapes Wikipedia for person list, enriches with DeepSeek AI classification
download-torrent	Downloads data sets via BitTorrent (aria2c), extracts archives
import-downloads	Imports downloaded files into the database
upload-r2	Uploads documents to Cloudflare R2 storage
process	Extracts text from PDFs using pdf.js
classify-media	Classifies documents by media type, assigns AI analysis priority (1-5)
analyze-ai	Two-tier AI analysis: rule-based (free) + DeepSeek API with budget tracking
load-persons	Loads persons from Wikipedia scrape into database
load-documents	Loads document metadata from DOJ catalog
load-ai-results	Upserts AI analysis results into database (persons, connections, events)
extract-connections	Extracts relationships between persons from descriptions
update-counts	Recalculates document and connection counts
dedup-persons	Merges duplicate person records with fuzzy matching

Data Sets

DS	Description	Size	Status
1-8	Court documents, legal filings	1-10 GB	Available via DOJ + torrent
9	Communications, emails, media	~143 GB	DOJ offline — torrent only
10	Visual media (180K+ images, 2K+ videos)	~79 GB	DOJ offline — torrent only
11	Financial ledgers, flight manifests	~28 GB	DOJ offline — torrent only
12	Court documents	114 MB	Available via DOJ + torrent

API

Documents

• GET /api/documents — Paginated list with server-side filtering (search, type, dataSet, redacted, mediaType)
• GET /api/documents/:id — Document detail with associated persons and timeline events
• GET /api/documents/:id/adjacent — Previous/next document IDs for navigation
• GET /api/documents/:id/pdf — PDF proxy (streams from R2 or local, handles CORS)
• GET /api/documents/:id/image — Image proxy/redirect
• GET /api/documents/:id/video — Video proxy with Range request support
• GET /api/documents/:id/content-url — Presigned R2 URL
• GET /api/documents/filters — Available filter options

Persons

• GET /api/persons — List all persons (with optional pagination)
• GET /api/persons/:id — Person detail with documents, connections, timeline events, and AI mentions

Search

• GET /api/search — Cross-entity search (persons, documents, events)
• GET /api/search/pages — Full-text page search with headline snippets

Network & Timeline

• GET /api/network — Network graph data (persons + connections with year ranges)
• GET /api/timeline — Timeline events with significance scoring

AI Analysis

• GET /api/ai-analyses — List all AI analyses (with optional pagination)
• GET /api/ai-analyses/aggregate — Aggregate AI analysis statistics (database-driven)
• GET /api/ai-analyses/:fileName — Individual AI analysis detail

Bookmarks

• GET /api/bookmarks — User bookmarks
• POST /api/bookmarks — Create bookmark (person/document/search)
• DELETE /api/bookmarks/:id — Delete bookmark

Export

• GET /api/export/persons — Export persons (JSON/CSV)
• GET /api/export/documents — Export documents (JSON/CSV)
• GET /api/export/search — Export search results (JSON/CSV)

Stats & Pipeline

• GET /api/stats — Dashboard statistics
• GET /api/sidebar-counts — Sidebar navigation counts
• GET /api/pipeline/jobs — Pipeline job status
• GET /api/pipeline/stats — Pipeline statistics
• GET /api/budget — AI cost budget summary

Database Schema

9 primary tables managed with Drizzle ORM:

Table	Description
persons	Named individuals with categories, aliases, Wikipedia data, profile sections (JSONB), top contacts
documents	Documents with metadata, processing status, R2 storage keys, AI analysis status
document_pages	Extracted page content with full-text search indexes
connections	Relationships between persons with type, strength (1-5), and source documents
person_documents	Join table linking persons to documents with context and mention type
timeline_events	Chronological events with significance scoring, linked to person and document IDs
pipeline_jobs	Pipeline task tracking with retry logic
budget_tracking	AI analysis cost tracking per document/job
bookmarks	User bookmarks for persons, documents, and searches

Project Structure

client/src/
  pages/              # 12 route pages
    dashboard.tsx      # Home with overview stats
    documents.tsx      # Paginated document browser
    document-detail.tsx # Document viewer (PDF/image/video)
    document-compare.tsx # Side-by-side comparison
    people.tsx         # People directory
    person-detail.tsx  # Person profile (Overview, Documents, Connections, Timeline tabs)
    network.tsx        # D3 force-directed network graph
    timeline.tsx       # Chronological event viewer
    search.tsx         # Cross-entity + full-text page search
    ai-insights.tsx    # AI analysis dashboard
  components/
    network-graph.tsx  # D3 force simulation with zoom/pan/search
    pdf-viewer.tsx     # PDF renderer (pdf.js)
    timeline-viz.tsx   # Timeline visualization
    person-hover-card.tsx # Quick person info popover
    app-sidebar.tsx    # Main navigation
    export-button.tsx  # CSV/JSON export
  hooks/
    use-bookmarks.ts   # Bookmark management
    use-keyboard-shortcuts.ts # Global keyboard shortcuts
    use-search-history.ts # Local search history
    use-url-filters.ts # URL-synced filter state
  components/ui/       # 67 shadcn/ui components
server/
  routes.ts            # 30+ API endpoints
  storage.ts           # Database queries (Drizzle ORM)
  db.ts                # PostgreSQL connection pool
shared/
  schema.ts            # Drizzle schema (9 tables) + Zod validation + TypeScript types
scripts/pipeline/
  run-pipeline.ts      # Pipeline orchestrator (13 stages)
  wikipedia-scraper.ts # Wikipedia person list scraper
  torrent-downloader.ts # BitTorrent download via aria2c
  ai-analyzer.ts       # Two-tier AI analysis (rule-based + DeepSeek)
  db-loader.ts         # Database loading operations
  pdf-processor.ts     # PDF text extraction
  media-classifier.ts  # Media type classification
  r2-migration.ts      # R2 storage upload
  load-pages.ts        # Document page content loader
  generate-profiles.ts # Person profile generation
  doj-scraper.ts       # DOJ catalog scraper
data/                  # Local data (gitignored)
  downloads/           # Downloaded documents by data set
  ai-analyzed/         # AI analysis JSON results

Deployment

Deployed on Fly.io with Docker multi-stage build:

• Region: iad (US East — Virginia)
• VM: 2 shared CPUs, 1 GB RAM
• Auto-scaling: Suspends when idle, auto-starts on requests
• Concurrency: 25 soft / 50 hard request limit
• HTTPS: Forced

# Deploy
fly deploy

# View logs
fly logs

License

MIT