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Oversight Panel

The House Oversight Committee has released a collection of roughly 70 images secured from the holdings of former convicted individual convicted of sex crimes Jeffrey Epstein.

This marks the third publication from a tranche of over 95,000 images the committee has obtained from Epstein's holdings. It features photographs of passages from the novel Lolita inscribed across a woman's body, and censored images of female overseas passports.

This release comes just hours before the 19th of December cut-off for the DOJ to release all files related to its investigation into Epstein.

"These photographs raise further inquiries about precisely what the DOJ has in its holdings," said the Democratic lead of the committee, Robert Garcia.

Contents in the Photographs Made Public

A number of the photographs published on recently depict Epstein speaking with academic and activist Noam Chomsky aboard a private jet; Bill Gates standing next to a individual whose identity is obscured; Steve Bannon seated at a workstation facing Epstein, and ex- Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a dinner gathering.

Committee

These are the most recent high-net-worth, prominent figures to be pictured in Epstein estate photographs released by the House Oversight Committee - earlier published pictures also show US President Donald Trump and ex-president Bill Clinton, as well as film director Woody Allen, former US Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers, attorney Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and other figures.

Being pictured in the photos is not evidence of any illegal activity, and many of the photographed men have said they were never implicated in Epstein's illegal activity.

In a announcement issued alongside the photo disclosure, Democratic members on the US House Oversight Committee stated the Epstein estate's representatives did not offer explanatory details or timeframes for the photographs.

"Photos were selected to offer the public with transparency into a representative sample of the images obtained from the estate, and to provide insights into Epstein's circle and his extremely alarming actions," the statement states.

Investigative Body

The disclosure also includes several photographs of excerpts from the Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita written in dark ink across several locations of a female's body, including her torso, feet, pelvis, and spine. Lolita tells the story of a young girl who was manipulated by a middle-aged literature professor.

A particular quote from the novel inscribed across a female's torso says, "Lolita: the end 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 series of images of female passports and official papers from countries around the world, such as Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Committee

A large portion of the information on the IDs, such as identities and birth dates, is censored but the panel stated in a statement that the passports pertain to "females whom Jeffrey Epstein and his associates were engaging".

A further image features Epstein sitting at a desk closely surrounded by three female figures whose faces have been redacted - a first has her palm on Epstein's upper body under his garment, and another individual is bending to view a adjacent device. Epstein can be seen to be assisting the final person fasten a bracelet.

Oversight Panel

A further photograph released is a image of SMS messages from an unnamed individual who states they have been provided "several females" and are asking for "$$1,000 per girl".

Image Disclosure Comes Ahead of DOJ Cut-off

The body has many thousands of images in its custody from the Epstein holdings, which are "simultaneously explicit and everyday," its press release on this week explained.

The Congressional committee first issued a subpoena to the property of Epstein, who died in a New York prison in 2019 while facing trial on charges of sex trafficking crimes, in August.

The photographs and files the Epstein estate provided to the committee are different than what is often referred to "Epstein-related records". That material are records under the Department of Justice's custody related to its independent probe into Epstein.

In accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which the President enacted in November, the DOJ has until 19 December to publish its records. The scope of the contents included in the DOJ's files is unknown, and it's expected that a significant portion of the material will be heavily obscured, akin to the committee's releases