🔗 Share this article

Investigative Body

The House Oversight Committee has published a collection of around 70 photographs obtained from the property of deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

This marks the third disclosure from a tranche of more than 95,000 images the body has acquired from Epstein's estate. It includes pictures of passages from the book Lolita inscribed across a female's body, and censored photos of women's foreign passports.

This disclosure arrives just hours before the 19th of December cut-off for the Justice Department to make public every records related to its inquiry into Epstein.

"These latest photos bring up additional questions about what exactly the Department of Justice has in its possession," said the senior Democrat of the panel, Robert Garcia.

Contents in the Photos Released

Several of the photographs released on Thursday show Epstein in discussion with academic and activist Noam Chomsky on a private jet; Bill Gates standing alongside a individual whose identity is censored; Steve Bannon sitting at a workstation opposite Epstein, and ex- Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a dinner gathering.

Committee

These are the latest wealthy, influential men to be photographed in Epstein's estate photographs published by the House Oversight Committee - earlier released photos also show US President Donald Trump and former president Bill Clinton, as well as film director Woody Allen, ex- US treasury secretary Larry Summers, counsel Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and others.

Showing up in the images is not indication of any wrongdoing, and many of the featured figures have stated they were never implicated in Epstein's illegal activity.

In a press release released with the image publication, Democrats on the US House Oversight Committee noted the Epstein property holders did not offer explanatory details or dates for the pictures.

"Images were picked to furnish the general populace with clarity into a illustrative selection of the photographs obtained from the holdings, and to offer insights into Epstein's network and his exceptionally alarming activities," the announcement states.

Committee

The release also contains several photographs of quotes from the Vladimir Nabokov novel Lolita inscribed in black ink across several locations of a woman's body, like her chest, feet, hip, and spine. Lolita narrates the account of a young girl who was exploited by a middle-aged literature professor.

An example of a quote from the novel scrawled across a woman's chest reads, "Lo-lee-ta: the end of the tongue making a journey of three steps down the mouth to tap, at three, on the teeth".

Additionally, there are a series of photographs of women's passports and ID papers from countries globally, including Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Committee

Most of the information on the documents, including names and dates of birth, is obscured but the panel stated in a press release that the passports pertain to "women whom Jeffrey Epstein and his conspirators were interacting with".

A further image features Epstein seated at a workstation closely flanked by three individuals whose features have been redacted - a first has her palm on Epstein's chest under his garment, and another is leaning to look at a adjacent laptop. Epstein appears to be assisting the third put on a wristband.

Committee

An additional photograph disclosed is a image of SMS messages from an unnamed individual who claims they have been supplied "some girls" and are asking for "$$1,000 per girl".

Photograph Release Comes Before DOJ Deadline

The committee has thousands of images in its custody from the Epstein estate, which are "simultaneously explicit and ordinary," its announcement on Thursday clarified.

The Congressional committee first issued a subpoena to the estate of Epstein, who was found dead in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on accusations of sex trafficking crimes, in August.

The photographs and records the Epstein property gave to the committee are distinct from what is largely called "Epstein-related records". That material are papers within the DOJ's custody connected to its separate probe into Epstein.

In accordance with the recently passed law, which the President enacted last month, the DOJ has a deadline of 19 December to disclose its records. The extent of the contents contained in the DOJ's records is unclear, and it's likely that a significant portion of the information will be heavily censored, similar to the committee's documents