🔗 Share this article

Committee

The House Oversight Committee has made public a collection of approximately 70 photos secured from the holdings of late convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

This marks the third release from a larger collection of in excess of 95,000 photographs the committee has obtained from Epstein's property. It features photographs of passages from the book Lolita inscribed across a woman's body, and censored pictures of women's international passports.

This action occurs mere hours before the 19 December deadline for the Justice Department to release every documents related to its probe into Epstein.

"These new photos raise further questions about what exactly the Justice Department has in its possession," said the senior Democrat of the panel, Robert Garcia.

What is in the Photos Disclosed

Several of the photos published on Thursday feature Epstein speaking with academic and activist Noam Chomsky aboard a personal aircraft; Bill Gates seen next to a woman whose face is obscured; Steve Bannon positioned at a workstation facing Epstein, and ex- Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a dinner gathering.

Oversight Panel

These are the latest high-net-worth, powerful figures to be pictured in Epstein property photographs published by the House Oversight Committee - formerly released images also show US President Donald Trump and past president Bill Clinton, as well as director Woody Allen, ex- US Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and others.

Being pictured in the photos is does not constitute proof of any wrongdoing, and a number of the featured men have asserted they were in no way participating in Epstein's unlawful actions.

In a statement accompanying the photograph disclosure, Lawmakers on the US House Oversight Committee noted the Epstein property holders did not offer context or timings for the images.

"Photos were selected to offer the American people with transparency into a illustrative selection of the photographs obtained from the estate, and to provide understanding into Epstein's circle and his extremely alarming actions," the statement says.

Committee

The disclosure also features a number of images of excerpts from the Vladimir Nabokov novel Lolita penned in ink across different parts of a woman's body, like her upper body, feet, hipbone, and rear. Lolita narrates the story of a minor who was groomed by a middle-aged literature professor.

A particular passage from the book written across a female's chest says, "Lolita: the tip of the tongue making a journey of three steps down the roof of the mouth to land, at three, on the teeth".

The release also contains a series of images of women's passports and official papers from nations around the world, including Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Investigative Body

The majority of the information on the IDs, including names and birth dates, is redacted but the panel said in a announcement that the travel documents belong to "individuals whom Jeffrey Epstein and his associates were engaging".

An additional photograph features Epstein sitting at a table closely flanked by three individuals whose faces have been redacted - one individual has her palm on Epstein's upper body under his clothing, and a second is bending to examine a adjacent device. Epstein can be seen to be aiding the final person put on a piece of jewelry.

Oversight Panel

An additional photograph made public is a capture of SMS messages from an unnamed sender who says they have been provided "some girls" and are demanding "$one thousand dollars for each individual".

Photograph Disclosure Comes Ahead of DOJ Due Date

The body has a vast number of photographs in its holdings from the Epstein holdings, which are "at once disturbing and mundane," its announcement on recently explained.

The oversight panel first legally compelled the holdings of Epstein, who was found dead in a New York prison in 2019 while pending legal proceedings on allegations of human trafficking, in August.

The photos and documents the Epstein estate's representatives provided to the panel are distinct from what is commonly termed "Epstein-related records". Those files are records under the justice department's possession related to its independent inquiry into Epstein.

In accordance with the recently passed law, which President Trump signed into law last month, the DOJ has until the date of 19 December to publish its records. The full nature of the contents included in the DOJ's documents is not publicly known, and it's likely that a significant portion of the content will be significantly redacted, comparable to House Oversight Committee releases