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Committee

The House investigative committee has made public a batch of around 70 photographs obtained from the property of deceased adjudicated sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

This marks the third disclosure from a larger collection of over 95,000 photographs the panel has obtained from Epstein's estate. It contains photographs of passages from the literary work Lolita written across a female's body, and redacted pictures of female foreign passports.

This release comes hours before the 19th of December cut-off for the Justice Department to release each files related to its inquiry into Epstein.

"These photos raise more queries about what exactly the Justice Department has in its holdings," remarked the senior Democrat of the committee, Robert Garcia.

Contents in the Photos Released

Several of the photos made public on recently depict Epstein speaking with academic and activist Noam Chomsky on a private jet; Bill Gates seen alongside a individual whose identity is censored; Steve Bannon positioned at a table across from Epstein, and previous Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a evening meal.

Committee

These are the latest high-net-worth, influential individuals to be seen in Epstein's estate images released by the committee - formerly published photos also show US President Donald Trump and ex-president Bill Clinton, as well as movie director Woody Allen, former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, attorney Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and others.

Showing up in the images is not proof of any wrongdoing, and several of the pictured individuals have said they were never involved in Epstein's illegal activity.

In a statement accompanying the photograph disclosure, Democrats on the US House Oversight Committee stated the Epstein estate did not supply background information or timeframes for the images.

"Photographs were chosen to offer the public with openness into a representative sample of the photos acquired from the property, and to offer understanding into Epstein's circle and his extremely troubling behavior," the release says.

Oversight Panel

The release also includes a number of photos of excerpts from the Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita penned in dark ink across various areas of a female's body, including her chest, foot, hipbone, and spine. Lolita recounts the account of a minor who was manipulated by a middle-aged literature professor.

A particular excerpt from the novel written across a woman's chest states, "Lolita's name: the end of the tongue traveling of three steps down the roof of the mouth to land, at three, on the teeth".

The release also contains a collection of photographs of female identification and ID papers from states around the world, such as Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Committee

A large portion of the details on the IDs, such as identities and dates of birth, is obscured but the House Oversight Committee indicated in a press release that the travel documents are associated with "women whom Jeffrey Epstein and his associates were interacting with".

An additional image shows Epstein positioned at a workstation closely flanked by three individuals whose features have been obscured - one individual has her hand on Epstein's chest under his garment, and a second is bending to examine a close-by computer. Epstein can be seen to be assisting the final person fasten a piece of jewelry.

Oversight Panel

A further image disclosed is a image of SMS messages from an unnamed person who states they have been supplied "a number of girls" and are asking for "$1000 per female".

Image Publication Occurs Before DOJ Cut-off

The body has thousands of photos in its custody from the Epstein estate, which are "at once explicit and everyday," its announcement on this week clarified.

The House Oversight Committee first subpoenaed the estate of Epstein, who was found dead in a New York correctional facility in 2019 while facing trial on accusations of sex trafficking crimes, in August.

The photographs and records the Epstein property provided to the body are distinct from what is often called "Epstein-related records". That material are documents in the justice department's possession associated with its separate probe into Epstein.

Under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which President Trump signed into law in November, the DOJ has until 19 December to publish its files. The full nature of the contents included in the DOJ's documents is unclear, and it's expected that much of the material will be heavily censored, similar to the committee's documents