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Committee

The House Oversight Committee has released a batch of around 70 photos secured from the holdings of late adjudicated sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

This represents the latest in a series of release from a cache of more than 95,000 images the committee has secured from Epstein's holdings. It includes pictures of quotes from the literary work Lolita inscribed across a female's body, and redacted photos of women's overseas passports.

This disclosure comes hours before the December 19th deadline for the DOJ to release all files associated with its probe into Epstein.

"These latest photos bring up further inquiries about what exactly the Department of Justice has in its holdings," said the ranking member of the panel, Robert Garcia.

What's in the Images Disclosed

A number of the photos published on recently depict Epstein conversing with scholar and advocate Noam Chomsky on a private plane; Bill Gates standing next to a woman whose face is redacted; Steve Bannon positioned at a desk facing Epstein, and former Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a dinner event.

Investigative Body

These are the newest affluent, prominent individuals to be pictured in Epstein estate photographs released by the House Oversight Committee - previously released images also include US President Donald Trump and past president Bill Clinton, as well as director Woody Allen, former US treasury secretary Larry Summers, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and others.

Showing up in the images is not proof of any illegal activity, and many of the pictured individuals have asserted they were not involved in Epstein's illegal activity.

In a statement accompanying the photograph disclosure, Democrats on the US House Oversight Committee stated the Epstein property holders did not supply explanatory details or timeframes for the photographs.

"Images were selected to provide the public with openness into a representative sample of the images received from the holdings, and to offer understanding into Epstein's associates and his extremely disturbing activities," the statement states.

Oversight Panel

The publication also features multiple photos of excerpts from the Vladimir Nabokov literary work Lolita written in dark ink across various areas of a woman's body, such as her upper body, feet, pelvis, and rear. Lolita tells the story of a adolescent who was groomed by a older literature professor.

An example of a passage from the novel scrawled across a female's torso says, "Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue traveling of three steps down the mouth to land, at three, on the teeth".

Additionally, there are a number of photos of women's travel documents and ID papers from countries worldwide, like Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Investigative Body

Most of the information on the papers, like names and dates of birth, is censored but the committee stated in a press release that the travel documents belong to "women whom Jeffrey Epstein and his conspirators were involved with".

A further photo features Epstein sitting at a desk in close proximity surrounded by three female figures whose features have been obscured - a first has her hand on Epstein's torso under his shirt, and a second is bending to examine a nearby laptop. Epstein seems to be assisting the final person put on a bracelet.

Committee

Another photo released is a screenshot of SMS messages from an unnamed person who claims they have been sent "some girls" and are asking for "$one thousand dollars per female".

Image Publication Arrives Ahead of DOJ Due Date

The body has thousands of photos in its holdings from the Epstein estate, which are "at once graphic and ordinary," its statement on this week explained.

The House Oversight Committee first subpoenaed the estate of Epstein, who passed away in a New York jail in 2019 while facing trial on allegations of sex trafficking crimes, in August.

The images and records the Epstein estate provided to the committee are different than what is often referred to "Epstein-related records". Those are documents in the DOJ's custody associated with its own inquiry into Epstein.

Under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which President Trump signed into law last month, the DOJ has a deadline of 19 December to release its records. The scope of what is contained 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 documents