🔗 Share this article

Oversight Panel

The House Oversight Committee has released a batch of roughly 70 photos obtained from the property of late convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

This marks the third publication from a cache of over 95,000 photographs the committee has obtained from Epstein's estate. It features photographs of excerpts from the literary work Lolita written across a female's body, and obscured images of women's overseas passports.

This release occurs mere hours before the 19 December cut-off for the Justice Department to disclose all documents connected to its investigation into Epstein.

"These photographs pose additional questions about what exactly the Department of Justice has in its possession," said the senior Democrat of the committee, Robert Garcia.

Contents in the Photographs Made Public

Some of the photographs published on Thursday feature Epstein conversing with academic and activist Noam Chomsky inside a personal aircraft; Bill Gates positioned next to a woman whose identity is censored; Steve Bannon positioned at a table across from Epstein, and ex- Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a dinner gathering.

Oversight Panel

These are the latest wealthy, prominent men to be seen in Epstein property images published by the oversight panel - formerly disclosed images also show US President Donald Trump and past president Bill Clinton, as well as movie director Woody Allen, ex- US treasury secretary Larry Summers, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and other figures.

Being pictured in the images is not evidence of any wrongdoing, and several of the photographed individuals have asserted they were in no way involved in Epstein's unlawful actions.

In a press release released with the photo release, Lawmakers on the US House Oversight Committee stated the Epstein property holders did not offer explanatory details or timeframes for the images.

"Photos were picked to offer the general populace with clarity into a illustrative selection of the images acquired from the property, and to offer insights into Epstein's network and his profoundly troubling behavior," the release reads.

Investigative Body

The release also includes several images of quotes from the Vladimir Nabokov novel Lolita penned in ink across various areas of a female's body, including her torso, lower extremity, hip, and rear. Lolita tells the tale of a minor who was groomed by a middle-aged literature professor.

One passage from the novel written across a woman's upper body says, "Lolita: the tip of the tongue traveling of three steps down the mouth to tap, at three, on the teeth".

Additionally, there are a collection of photographs of women's passports and ID papers from nations globally, such as Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Committee

Most of the details on the documents, including identities and birth dates, is redacted but the committee said in a press release that the travel documents pertain to "women whom Jeffrey Epstein and his conspirators were involved with".

A further photo depicts Epstein seated at a workstation intimately in the company of three female figures whose features have been obscured - one individual has her hand on Epstein's chest under his shirt, and another is leaning to look at a adjacent device. Epstein can be seen to be helping the third individual fasten a piece of jewelry.

Committee

Another image made public is a capture of digital messages from an unknown sender who claims they have been sent "a number of girls" and are demanding "$one thousand dollars per girl".

Photograph Disclosure Occurs Before DOJ Deadline

The panel has many thousands of images in its holdings from the Epstein property, which are "both explicit and mundane," its statement on this week explained.

The House Oversight Committee first subpoenaed the estate of Epstein, who passed away in a New York prison in 2019 while pending legal proceedings on accusations of sex trafficking, in August.

The photos and documents the Epstein estate submitted to the committee are distinct from what is largely termed "the Epstein files". That material are records under the justice department's custody related to its own inquiry into Epstein.

Under the Transparency Act, which the President made law recently, the DOJ has a deadline of 19 December to release its records. The full nature of what is contained in the DOJ's records is unknown, and it's expected that much of the material will be extensively censored, comparable to Congressional materials