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Investigative Body

The House investigative committee has made public a batch of roughly 70 photos obtained from the property of late convicted individual convicted of sex crimes Jeffrey Epstein.

This constitutes the latest in a series of disclosure from a cache of over 95,000 photos the committee has acquired from Epstein's estate. It contains pictures of passages from the novel Lolita written across a female's body, and redacted images of women's overseas passports.

This disclosure arrives just hours before the December 19th cut-off for the DOJ to release every documents connected to its investigation into Epstein.

"These images bring up further questions about precisely what the Justice Department has in its custody," stated the ranking member of the committee, Robert Garcia.

Contents in the Photographs Made Public

Several of the images made public on Thursday feature Epstein in discussion with scholar and advocate Noam Chomsky aboard a private jet; Bill Gates seen next to a individual whose face is redacted; Steve Bannon seated at a desk across from Epstein, and previous Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a evening meal.

Committee

These are the latest wealthy, influential men to be seen in Epstein property photos disclosed by the oversight panel - previously published photos also depict US President Donald Trump and ex-president Bill Clinton, as well as director Woody Allen, former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and other figures.

Appearing in the images is does not constitute proof of any wrongdoing, and many of the photographed individuals have asserted they were never involved in Epstein's illegal activity.

In a announcement issued alongside the photograph release, Democrats on the US House Oversight Committee said the Epstein property holders did not provide background information or dates for the pictures.

"Photographs were selected to furnish the general populace with clarity into a typical cross-section of the images obtained from the estate, and to give insights into Epstein's associates and his exceptionally alarming activities," the statement states.

Committee

The release also features multiple photos of quotes from the Vladimir Nabokov novel Lolita inscribed in dark ink across different parts of a woman's body, like her upper body, foot, hipbone, and back. Lolita narrates the tale of a adolescent who was groomed by a middle-aged literature professor.

A particular passage from the novel inscribed across a female's chest reads, "Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the mouth to land, at three, on the teeth".

Additionally, there are a number of images of women's passports and identification documents from states worldwide, including Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Oversight Panel

The majority of the data on the IDs, such as names and dates of birth, is redacted but the panel said in a press release that the travel documents are associated with "individuals whom Jeffrey Epstein and his associates were interacting with".

A further photograph features Epstein positioned at a desk in close proximity in the company of three individuals whose features have been redacted - a first has her palm on Epstein's upper body under his garment, and another is leaning to look at a close-by laptop. Epstein can be seen to be aiding the third fasten a bracelet.

Oversight Panel

Another image released is a image of SMS messages from an unknown person who states they have been supplied "several females" and are asking for "$$1,000 for each individual".

Photograph Release Comes Before DOJ Cut-off

The panel has many thousands of photos in its holdings from the Epstein property, which are "simultaneously disturbing and mundane," its announcement on recently clarified.

The oversight panel first issued a subpoena to the estate of Epstein, who was found dead in a New York prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking crimes, in August.

The images and documents the Epstein property provided to the body are separate from what is often called "the Epstein files". Those files are papers in the Department of Justice's possession connected to its own probe into Epstein.

Pursuant to the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which the President signed into law last month, the DOJ has until the date of 19 December to publish its documents. The extent of what is found in the DOJ's documents is unknown, and it's likely that a large amount of the content will be extensively obscured, akin to House Oversight Committee documents