🔗 Share this article

Oversight Panel

The Congressional oversight panel has published a collection of approximately 70 photos secured from the holdings of former adjudicated individual convicted of sex crimes Jeffrey Epstein.

This constitutes the third such disclosure from a tranche of over 95,000 images the body has obtained from Epstein's property. It features images of quotes from the literary work Lolita scrawled across a female's body, and obscured pictures of women's foreign passports.

This release arrives mere hours before the December 19th due date for the Department of Justice to make public all records related to its inquiry into Epstein.

"These new photos bring up additional inquiries about precisely what the Justice Department has in its holdings," said the senior Democrat of the panel, Robert Garcia.

What's in the Photos Released

A number of the images released on this week depict Epstein speaking with academic and activist Noam Chomsky aboard a personal aircraft; Bill Gates positioned alongside a female whose face is redacted; Steve Bannon positioned at a workstation facing Epstein, and former Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a dinner event.

Committee

These are the newest affluent, influential figures to be photographed in Epstein's estate photos disclosed by the House Oversight Committee - earlier disclosed pictures also depict US President Donald Trump and past president Bill Clinton, as well as director Woody Allen, ex- US Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers, attorney Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and others.

Being pictured in the photographs is is not considered evidence of any wrongdoing, and several of the pictured men have said they were never participating in Epstein's illegal activity.

In a press release released with the photo publication, Democratic members on the US House Oversight Committee said the Epstein property holders did not supply background information or timings for the images.

"Photographs were picked to provide the public with clarity into a illustrative selection of the images acquired from the estate, and to offer insights into Epstein's circle and his extremely disturbing actions," the release states.

Oversight Panel

The release also includes several images of excerpts from the Vladimir Nabokov novel Lolita written in dark ink across different parts of a woman's body, like her torso, feet, pelvis, and back. Lolita narrates the account of a young girl who was groomed by a middle-aged literature professor.

An example of a quote from the work scrawled across a woman's torso says, "Lolita's name: the point of the tongue making a journey of three steps down the palate to land, at three, on the teeth".

There are also a series of photos of women's passports and identification documents from states worldwide, including Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Committee

The majority of the information on the papers, such as identities and DOBs, is censored but the committee stated in a statement that the travel documents belong to "individuals whom Jeffrey Epstein and his associates were interacting with".

A further photo shows Epstein sitting at a desk intimately surrounded by three women whose faces have been obscured - a first has her palm on Epstein's upper body under his clothing, and a second is bending to examine a nearby device. Epstein seems to be assisting the final person fasten a bracelet.

Committee

An additional photograph made public is a image of text messages from an unidentified individual who says they have been supplied "some girls" and are demanding "$1000 for each individual".

Photograph Disclosure Comes Before DOJ Deadline

The panel has a vast number of images in its holdings from the Epstein holdings, which are "both disturbing and mundane," its statement on recently noted.

The House Oversight Committee first subpoenaed the holdings of Epstein, who died in a New York prison in 2019 while facing trial on allegations of human trafficking, in August.

The images and files the Epstein property gave to the panel are distinct from what is often referred to "the Epstein files". That material are papers within the justice department's possession related to its separate investigation into Epstein.

In accordance with the Transparency Act, which Donald Trump made law last month, the DOJ has until 19 December to release its files. The extent of the contents included in the DOJ's documents is unknown, and it's probable that much of the material will be significantly redacted, akin to House Oversight Committee releases