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Committee

The House investigative committee has made public a set of around 70 photos from the estate of deceased adjudicated sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

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

This disclosure occurs just hours before the 19 December cut-off for the DOJ to disclose each files connected to its investigation into Epstein.

"These images bring up more questions about precisely what the Justice Department has in its holdings," stated the ranking member of the panel, Robert Garcia.

What is in the Photographs Released

Some of the photos made public on Thursday feature Epstein speaking with professor and activist Noam Chomsky on a personal aircraft; Bill Gates standing beside a female whose identity is censored; Steve Bannon positioned at a table across from Epstein, and previous Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a dinner event.

Committee

These are the newest high-net-worth, prominent individuals to be seen in Epstein's estate images published by the committee - previously published pictures also include US President Donald Trump and ex-president Bill Clinton, as well as director Woody Allen, ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, attorney Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and others.

Being pictured in the images is does not constitute indication of any wrongdoing, and many of the photographed men have asserted they were in no way implicated in Epstein's illegal activity.

In a announcement accompanying the image publication, Democratic members on the US House Oversight Committee said the Epstein property holders did not provide background information or timeframes for the images.

"Photos were chosen to provide the public with openness into a typical cross-section of the photos received from the holdings, and to offer perspectives into Epstein's associates and his profoundly alarming activities," the statement reads.

Oversight Panel

The disclosure also contains a number of photos of passages from the Vladimir Nabokov literary work Lolita written in dark ink across several locations of a woman's body, including her chest, feet, pelvis, and back. Lolita narrates the story of a minor who was exploited by a middle-aged literature professor.

An example of a passage from the novel inscribed across a female's torso says, "Lolita's name: the tip of the tongue traveling of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth".

There are also a collection of photographs of female travel documents and identification documents from states worldwide, like Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Oversight Panel

A large portion of the data on the IDs, like identities and DOBs, is redacted but the committee stated in a announcement that the passports pertain to "females whom Jeffrey Epstein and his associates were engaging".

A further image features Epstein seated at a workstation closely in the company of three individuals whose identities have been censored - one individual has her hand on Epstein's chest under his shirt, and a second is crouching to examine a nearby computer. Epstein can be seen to be helping the third individual attach a wristband.

Oversight Panel

Another photo made public is a screenshot of SMS messages from an unidentified person who states they have been provided "a number of girls" and are requesting "$one thousand dollars per girl".

Image Publication Arrives Before DOJ Cut-off

The body has thousands of photos in its possession from the Epstein holdings, which are "simultaneously graphic and everyday," its statement on Thursday noted.

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

The photos and files the Epstein estate's representatives provided to the committee are separate from what is largely referred to "Epstein-related records". Those files are records in the DOJ's control related to its separate probe into Epstein.

Under the Transparency Act, which the President enacted in November, the DOJ has until the date of 19 December to publish its documents. The full nature of what is contained in the DOJ's files is not publicly known, and it's probable that a significant portion of the material will be significantly obscured, comparable to the committee's documents