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Investigative Body

The House investigative committee has made public a set of around 70 photographs from the estate of late adjudicated sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

This represents the third such release from a cache of in excess of 95,000 photos the body has obtained from Epstein's property. It includes images of excerpts from the literary work Lolita inscribed across a female's body, and obscured images of women's overseas passports.

This release arrives hours before the December 19th due date for the Justice Department to disclose each documents related to its probe into Epstein.

"These new images raise additional questions about precisely what the DOJ has in its possession," remarked the ranking member of the committee, Robert Garcia.

What's in the Photographs Made Public

Some of the photographs published on Thursday feature Epstein in discussion with scholar and advocate Noam Chomsky inside a private jet; Bill Gates positioned alongside a individual whose identity is censored; Steve Bannon sitting at a table facing Epstein, and former Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a dinner event.

Oversight Panel

These are the latest wealthy, powerful figures to be seen in Epstein property photographs released by the committee - previously released images also depict US President Donald Trump and ex-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.

Showing up in the images is not evidence of any illegal activity, and a number of the photographed men have stated they were not implicated in Epstein's criminal activity.

In a press release issued alongside the image release, Democratic members on the US House Oversight Committee noted the Epstein estate did not provide background information or timeframes for the images.

"Photos were selected to provide the general populace with transparency into a typical cross-section of the photographs received from the property, and to offer perspectives into Epstein's circle and his extremely alarming behavior," the announcement reads.

Committee

The disclosure also includes a number of photos of passages from the Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita written in dark ink across different parts of a woman's body, like her torso, lower extremity, hipbone, and rear. Lolita tells the tale of a adolescent who was groomed by a adult literature professor.

An example of a quote from the work inscribed across a female's upper body says, "Lo-lee-ta: the point of the tongue traveling of three steps down the roof of the mouth to tap, at three, on the teeth".

Additionally, there are a collection of photographs of female travel documents and official papers from states worldwide, like Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Investigative Body

The majority of the data on the documents, like identities and DOBs, is obscured but the panel said in a press release that the passports are associated with "women whom Jeffrey Epstein and his associates were engaging".

Another image shows Epstein seated at a desk closely flanked by three women whose faces have been obscured - one individual has her palm on Epstein's chest under his clothing, and a second is leaning to view a adjacent laptop. Epstein appears to be aiding the third individual put on a piece of jewelry.

Committee

A further photograph disclosed is a image of SMS messages from an unidentified sender who says they have been supplied "a number of girls" and are requesting "$one thousand dollars per girl".

Image Disclosure Occurs Prior to DOJ Due Date

The committee has a vast number of images in its holdings from the Epstein estate, which are "at once disturbing and ordinary," its announcement on this week explained.

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

The photographs and files the Epstein estate gave to the committee are distinct from what is commonly referred to "the Epstein files". That material are records within the DOJ's custody related to its own investigation into Epstein.

In accordance with the recently passed law, which Donald Trump made law in November, the DOJ has until the date of 19 December to disclose its documents. The scope of what's found in the DOJ's files is not publicly known, and it's expected that much of the material will be heavily obscured, akin to House Oversight Committee materials