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Committee

The House investigative committee has released a collection of around 70 photos obtained from the property of late found guilty sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

This represents the latest in a series of publication from a cache of in excess of 95,000 photos the body has acquired from Epstein's holdings. It features images of quotes from the novel Lolita inscribed across a female's body, and obscured images of women's international passports.

This disclosure comes hours before the 19th of December cut-off for the Department of Justice to disclose all files associated with its probe into Epstein.

"These new photos bring up more questions about exactly what the DOJ has in its holdings," remarked the ranking member of the committee, Robert Garcia.

What is in the Photographs Disclosed

Some of the photos published on Thursday show Epstein conversing with academic and activist Noam Chomsky aboard a private jet; Bill Gates standing beside a female whose face is censored; Steve Bannon seated at a workstation facing Epstein, and previous Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a dinner event.

Oversight Panel

These are the latest high-net-worth, prominent individuals to be pictured in Epstein property photos published by the oversight panel - formerly disclosed images also show US President Donald Trump and former president Bill Clinton, as well as movie director Woody Allen, ex- US Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and others.

Appearing in the photos is not proof of any illegal activity, and a number of the pictured men have said they were in no way participating in Epstein's criminal activity.

In a statement accompanying the photo disclosure, Democrats on the US House Oversight Committee said the Epstein property holders did not offer background information or dates for the photographs.

"Photos were picked to provide the general populace with openness into a representative sample of the images obtained from the property, and to offer perspectives into Epstein's associates and his exceptionally troubling actions," the release says.

Committee

The release also includes a number of photos of quotes from the Vladimir Nabokov literary work Lolita penned in black ink across various areas of a female's body, like her upper body, lower extremity, pelvis, and back. Lolita recounts the tale of a young girl who was manipulated by a older literature professor.

An example of a passage from the book written across a female's chest reads, "Lolita's name: the point of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the roof of the mouth to land, at three, on the teeth".

The release also contains a number of images of female travel documents and official papers from nations worldwide, such as Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Investigative Body

A large portion of the information on the papers, like names and dates of birth, is obscured but the panel stated in a statement that the passports pertain to "women whom Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators were involved with".

Another photo shows Epstein seated at a desk intimately in the company of three individuals whose features have been redacted - one individual has her hand on Epstein's upper body under his shirt, and a second is crouching to look at a adjacent device. Epstein can be seen to be helping the third individual fasten a bracelet.

Investigative Body

A further image made public is a screenshot of digital messages from an unidentified sender who says they have been provided "several females" and are demanding "$1000 per female".

Photo Disclosure Comes Prior to DOJ Deadline

The panel has many thousands of images in its custody from the Epstein estate, which are "at once explicit and everyday," its statement on this week clarified.

The Congressional committee first issued a subpoena to the estate of Epstein, who was found dead in a New York jail in 2019 while pending legal proceedings on charges of sex trafficking crimes, in August.

The photos and documents the Epstein estate submitted to the body are different than what is largely referred to "Epstein-related records". Those are papers under the justice department's control connected to its separate investigation into Epstein.

Under the Transparency Act, which President Trump made law in November, the DOJ has until 19 December to publish its records. The scope of what is contained in the DOJ's files is unclear, and it's expected that a significant portion of the content will be heavily censored, akin to House Oversight Committee materials