🔗 Share this article

Oversight Panel

The Congressional oversight panel has published a collection of around 70 photographs obtained from the property of former adjudicated sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

This constitutes the third such disclosure from a tranche of over 95,000 photos the body has acquired from Epstein's estate. It features photographs of excerpts from the literary work Lolita written across a woman's body, and censored pictures of women's international passports.

This disclosure comes mere hours before the 19 December deadline for the Department of Justice to release all files associated with its probe into Epstein.

"These new photographs pose further queries about precisely what the Justice Department has in its holdings," said the senior Democrat of the panel, Robert Garcia.

What is in the Photos Released

A number of the photos published on Thursday show Epstein speaking with scholar and advocate Noam Chomsky inside a private jet; Bill Gates standing beside a female whose features is censored; Steve Bannon positioned at a desk opposite Epstein, and former Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a dinner gathering.

Oversight Panel

These are the newest affluent, influential individuals to be pictured in Epstein property photographs disclosed by the committee - earlier disclosed pictures also include US President Donald Trump and ex-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 additional individuals.

Being pictured in the photos is is not considered evidence of any misconduct, and a number of the featured men have said they were not implicated in Epstein's unlawful actions.

In a press release accompanying the photograph disclosure, Democrats on the US House Oversight Committee noted the Epstein estate did not offer background information or timeframes for the images.

"Photos were chosen to provide the American people with transparency into a representative sample of the photos received from the holdings, and to provide insights into Epstein's circle and his exceptionally troubling behavior," the statement says.

Investigative Body

The release also features several photos of quotes from the Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita inscribed in dark ink across various areas of a female's body, including her torso, feet, hipbone, and back. Lolita recounts the story of a young girl who was groomed by a adult literature professor.

An example of a excerpt from the work inscribed across a female's torso states, "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 collection of images of women's travel documents and ID papers from states globally, like Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Committee

A large portion of the information on the papers, such as names and birth dates, is censored but the committee indicated in a announcement that the travel documents are associated with "individuals whom Jeffrey Epstein and his conspirators were engaging".

An additional photo shows Epstein seated at a workstation in close proximity flanked by three female figures whose features have been redacted - a first has her hand on Epstein's chest under his shirt, and another individual is leaning to look at a close-by laptop. Epstein appears to be assisting the third put on a bracelet.

Oversight Panel

Another photo made public is a screenshot of digital messages from an unnamed individual who says they have been provided "several females" and are demanding "$one thousand dollars per female".

Image Publication Comes Prior to DOJ Deadline

The panel has thousands of photographs in its holdings from the Epstein holdings, which are "both explicit and ordinary," its press release on Thursday clarified.

The Congressional committee first legally compelled the estate of Epstein, who passed away in a New York prison in 2019 while pending legal proceedings on charges of human trafficking, in August.

The photographs and files the Epstein estate gave to the body are distinct from what is commonly referred to "the Epstein files". That material are papers in the DOJ's possession associated with its independent probe into Epstein.

In accordance with the Transparency Act, which President Trump signed into law in November, the DOJ has a deadline of 19 December to disclose its documents. The full nature of what's included in the DOJ's records is unknown, and it's expected that a large amount of the content will be heavily redacted, akin to Congressional materials