The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) website experienced widespread access issues on Friday as users rushed to view newly released documents linked to Jeffrey Epstein. The surge followed the first public disclosure under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which became law in November 2025.
Within minutes of the files going live, visitors reported long delays, error messages, and forced waiting queues, indicating the system was overwhelmed by demand.
What Users Experienced
Visitors attempting to access the Epstein files encountered a notice stating the site was facing extremely high search volume. Users were placed into a virtual queue and asked to wait before their requests could be processed.
In many cases, the wait time was approximately one minute, though some users reported the page failed to load entirely. Others said they received error messages indicating their queue number had been rejected, requiring them to rejoin the line at the end.
Timeline of the Outage
The access problems appeared almost immediately after the DOJ published the documents. As traffic surged, complaints spread rapidly across social media platforms, with users sharing screenshots of error pages and queue notices.
The DOJ has not released an official statement addressing the outage or confirming when full access would be restored.
About the Epstein Files Release
The release marked the first batch of documents made public under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a law enacted last November aimed at expanding public access to records related to the late financier.
The scale of interest highlighted the intense public demand for the records, which appeared to exceed the DOJ website’s capacity at launch.
