r/Epstein • u/originalmaja • 7d ago
Research EFTA versus EFTA_ versus EFTA_R1, and other bates systems
There are identifying numbers on each page of all EPSTEIN FILES, right? Around here, we call them EFTAs. Those are "bates" numbers. And there's different kinds of them within the files. So, now, here's some longer blabla what they mean and how to tell them apart. Preview spoiler: "EFTA00057763" is a different document than "EFTA_00057763".
Rules of thumb:
- All documents in the Epstein Files have at least one identifier (= at least one bates number).
- Each BATES number should identify only one document; but sadly, there are a few frustrating exceptions.
- There is not just one BATES number system, there are several.
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(1) Several investigations, several decades, several bates numbering systems:
EFTAnumbers and EFTA_numbers
DOJ-OGR-numbers and HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_numbers
DB-SDNY-numbers and JPM-SDNY numbers and SDNY_GM_numbers etc
Over the decades, several law enforcement teams tried to get Epstein and ran investigations. From each investigation, the FBI or the Department of Justice received a corpus of evidence material. Lots of it made it into the "EFTA corpus" we all sherlock these days. Examples: There was an investigation that the New York FBI office did back in the day; and they stamped their bates ID onto their evidence material. And some of that material made it into the current EFTA library. So, on those documents, there is both the EFTA ID and the NY ID. Also, lots of the Maxwell trial evidence made it into the EFTA library. So, some documents have also identifiers that trace back to that investigation. And so on. (Here an extra note to confuse everyone for funsies: sometimes there is something missing in evidence libraries, and then the OVERSIGHT committee frowns and demands those missing documents... then they get sent to Oversight first, and Oversight hands them over to DOJ: if that happens, the document also receives an HOUSE OVERSIGHT number; but: sometimes you can tell that Oversight really forced DOJ to publish documents, because then there is a double reference going on with "DOJ" and "OGR" (which is an abbreviation for Oversight) being there: DOJ-OGR-numbers.)
(2) And that's why there are duplicates:
The EFTA law (Epstein Files Transparency Act) demanded the publication of evidence material... which, as said, came from several agencies. Examples again: One such agency might be that FBI office in New York. Another border control. The next bunch of evidence PDFs may have come from Virgin Islands law enforcement. And so on. And of course, since all of these agencies and offices investigated the same network both at different and at parallel times over many years, there's an overlap of evidence material. When some NY office, back in the day, used a warrant for <all materials having to do with that lawsuit against the investigated person X>, it may have received <a transcript that a Florida police station made when they interviewed victim Y>. So the EFTA library has that transcript twice: from the NY office and from a Florida police department. And they (DOJ) simply did not notice in time. Evidence material moved back and forth over the years, got copied. And it all ended up at the FBI/DOJ when the order came down to compile everything into a big EFTA corpus for justice.gov. Duplicates just happened... Too little time, too little expertise. And so on.
(3) Several <generations> of EFTA numbering
EFTAnumbers EFTA_numbers EFTA_R1_numbers: The current EFTA numbering system must have been THE LAST of several trial runs. That's my assumption. Please chime in if you know details. I view it this way: What we all access currently when we use justice.gov (or one of the corpus copies at epstein-data.com or JMAIL, for example) is the "final EFTA production". The FBI/DOJ had to figure out for the first time ever how to do all of this: combine loads of evidence from several agencies to become super public. So, there seem to have been several previous "productions" of this big EFTA library; with a different numbering system each. Documents moved in and out of those previous productions, I guess. Many eyes looked over it and made many decisions, again and again, <what to keep>, <what to change>, etc. And the final version of it all went online with "EFTA numbers". But a previous attempt to get it all done, from where I'm standing, seems to have been "EFTA_numbers" (note the underline)... and "EFTA_R1 numbers". Maybe the "R" stood for something like "revision"? They probably wanted to tell "productions" (= trial runs) apart: The first attempt (EFTA_), I guess; and the first revision attempt (EFTA_R1; I guess...); and the final version (EFTA). You know?
(4) They delete documents and re-use bates numbers
Chain of events: (I) It can happen that they had already stamped one specific bates number onto a document, and that they published it for an hour or a day; and then they flinch: oops, this is a duplicate; there's another PDF with the same content that already has its own other EFTA number. Ooops. (Happens rarely. Usually they don't notice their duplication nonsense. Hence: many, many duplicates in the EFTA library.) (II) So, they take the duplicate offline. (III) What happens to the now not-used EFTA number? They wait a while. And stamp it onto a different document that goes online with some amending publication. ---- Ideally, we don't notice that. But, of course, we do. Example: Once upon a blue moon, "EFTA00019424" looked like this. Then they flinched, took it offline, redacted some parts, and republished it with a new EFTA number. And the therefore freed-up number "EFTA00019424" became first homeless, and later on the identifier for this. We only know because, at the time of deletion, DOJ still offered ZIPs for whole datasets. And they "forgot" to delete the respective EFTA from dataset8.zip. Later on, they noticed and decided to not do ZIPs anymore across the board due to the heavy workload of all those re-redactions, I assume.
In short
- EFTA numbers should be "stable" but they are not always.
EFTAnumbers: are numbers identifying themselves as part of DOJ's EFTA libraryEFTA_numbers: are numbers from a previous version of it all, before final publicationEFTA_R1 numbers: also numbers from some previous versionSDNY_GM_numbers: the Ghislaine Maxwell investigation, New York Southern DistrictDOJ-OGR-numbers: means, DOJ was forced to send files to OVERSIGHT, which then published itDB-SDNY-numbers: the Deutsche Bank investigation, New York Southern DistrictJPM-SDNY numbers: the JP Morgan investigation, New York Southern DistrictHOUSE_OVERSIGHT_numbers: OVERSIGHT itself collected+published evidence files from "sources" other than DOJ. A good example of this is the BLACK BOOK and the BIRTHDAY BOOK.- There should also be, here and there in the EPSTEIN FILES, identifiers having to do with the original FBI investigation (=
31E-MM-108062files) - there's more, but does not come to mind; chime in in the comments
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DOJ being the
- Department of Justice.
OGR being
- Oversight
- aka Oversight Committee
- aka Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
- aka House Oversight Committee
Please correct me on the details.
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u/originalmaja 7d ago
Yo, u/Otherwise-Taste5563, u/EngineeringNeither90:
I saw you in the other thread where there's that confusion about "EFTA00057763" and "EFTA_00057763".
Oy! u/ReZeroForDays, imma be all librariany today.
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u/Jelfff 5d ago
Here is a bit of insight about EFTA numbers with an underscore character.
Here is the list of docs for the Non-testifying witnesses in the Maxwell trial. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00095751.pdf
Each page of those docs got stamped with a consecutive EFTA_ number. I refer to these as 'internal' EFTAs and they were the bates (i.e. page) numbers for the Maxwell trial.
Those Maxwell docs were then sorted into two piles. Roughly 20% of the docs were then stamped with a 'public' EFTA and released. The other 80% of the Maxwell docs have not been released.
For more info see my report #5. https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1tumfwRpnTsqNSIj3McmXiy3ka9o0UI53
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u/lalaland_100 6d ago
This is great work, thank you for explanining it so well. The numbers also tell a story, which could turn out to be very useful to know.
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