🔗 Share this article

Investigative Body

The House Oversight Committee has made public a collection of approximately 70 photographs obtained from the property of deceased adjudicated individual convicted of sex crimes Jeffrey Epstein.

This marks the third such publication from a larger collection of in excess of 95,000 photographs the body has secured from Epstein's property. It includes images of quotes from the book Lolita written across a woman's body, and obscured images of women's international passports.

This disclosure occurs hours before the 19 December cut-off for the Justice Department to make public each files related to its inquiry into Epstein.

"These photos raise further inquiries about precisely what the Department of Justice has in its holdings," remarked the ranking member of the committee, Robert Garcia.

What is in the Images Released

Some of the photos released on this week feature Epstein conversing with academic and activist Noam Chomsky inside a personal aircraft; Bill Gates standing next to a woman whose face is obscured; Steve Bannon sitting at a table across from Epstein, and ex- Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a dinner event.

Oversight Panel

These are the newest wealthy, powerful men to be photographed in Epstein's estate images released by the House Oversight Committee - formerly disclosed pictures also include US President Donald Trump and ex-president Bill Clinton, as well as film director Woody Allen, former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, attorney Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and additional individuals.

Appearing in the photos is is not considered indication of any wrongdoing, and many of the photographed individuals have asserted they were in no way participating in Epstein's criminal activity.

In a statement accompanying the photograph release, Democrats on the US House Oversight Committee noted the Epstein estate did not offer explanatory details or timeframes for the pictures.

"Photos were picked to furnish the general populace with clarity into a representative sample of the images acquired from the estate, and to give perspectives into Epstein's circle and his profoundly alarming behavior," the statement reads.

Committee

The release also features multiple photos of excerpts from the Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita penned in dark ink across various areas of a woman's body, such as her upper body, feet, pelvis, and back. Lolita narrates the tale of a adolescent who was groomed by a older literature professor.

One quote from the novel scrawled across a female's upper body says, "Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to land, at three, on the teeth".

Additionally, there are a number of photos of female identification and official papers from states globally, such as Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Committee

Most of the information on the IDs, including names and birth dates, is censored but the panel said in a statement that the travel documents pertain to "females whom Jeffrey Epstein and his associates were interacting with".

A further photo depicts Epstein positioned at a workstation closely flanked by three women whose features have been obscured - one has her hand on Epstein's torso under his clothing, and another individual is leaning to look at a nearby laptop. Epstein appears to be assisting the third individual put on a wristband.

Investigative Body

An additional image made public is a capture of text messages from an unidentified sender who says they have been supplied "several females" and are asking for "$$1,000 for each individual".

Photo Publication Occurs Ahead of DOJ Cut-off

The body has many thousands of images in its custody from the Epstein property, which are "at once graphic and ordinary," its statement on this week clarified.

The House Oversight Committee first subpoenaed the estate of Epstein, who died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on allegations of sex trafficking, in August.

The images and records the Epstein estate gave to the body are distinct from what is commonly referred to "the Epstein documents". Those files are papers in the justice department's possession associated with its separate probe into Epstein.

In accordance with the recently passed law, which Donald Trump enacted last month, the DOJ has until the date of 19 December to release its records. The extent of what is included in the DOJ's records is not publicly known, and it's expected that a significant portion of the information will be heavily redacted, comparable to House Oversight Committee documents