🔗 Share this article

Investigative Body

The Congressional oversight panel has made public a batch of roughly 70 photographs obtained from the property of late adjudicated sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

This constitutes the third release from a larger collection of in excess of 95,000 images the committee has secured from Epstein's holdings. It includes images of quotes from the novel Lolita written across a woman's body, and censored pictures of female international passports.

This disclosure occurs mere hours before the December 19th deadline for the Justice Department to make public each files related to its inquiry into Epstein.

"These images bring up additional inquiries about precisely what the Department of Justice has in its custody," said the ranking member of the panel, Robert Garcia.

What is in the Photographs Released

A number of the images published on recently depict Epstein conversing with academic and activist Noam Chomsky aboard a private plane; Bill Gates standing beside a individual whose face is censored; Steve Bannon positioned at a table opposite Epstein, and ex- Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a evening meal.

Oversight Panel

These are the most recent affluent, powerful figures to be seen in Epstein property images published by the committee - earlier disclosed images also show US President Donald Trump and ex-president Bill Clinton, as well as director Woody Allen, ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and additional individuals.

Showing up in the photographs is does not constitute proof of any wrongdoing, and several of the featured individuals have said they were in no way participating in Epstein's criminal activity.

In a press release issued alongside the photograph disclosure, Democratic members on the US House Oversight Committee stated the Epstein estate's representatives did not supply explanatory details or dates for the photographs.

"Photographs were selected to provide the public with clarity into a representative sample of the photos obtained from the holdings, and to provide insights into Epstein's network and his exceptionally alarming behavior," the statement reads.

Investigative Body

The publication also contains multiple photographs of excerpts from the Vladimir Nabokov literary work Lolita penned in dark ink across different parts of a woman's body, like her upper body, foot, pelvis, and spine. Lolita narrates the account of a young girl who was manipulated by a older literature professor.

One quote from the novel scrawled across a female's torso says, "Lo-lee-ta: the end of the tongue making a journey of three steps down the roof of the mouth to land, at three, on the teeth".

There are also a collection of photos of female travel documents and ID papers from states globally, such as Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Committee

A large portion of the data on the IDs, including names and dates of birth, is redacted but the panel stated in a statement that the travel documents belong to "individuals whom Jeffrey Epstein and his conspirators were interacting with".

An additional photograph shows Epstein seated at a table closely flanked by three female figures whose faces have been censored - one individual has her palm on Epstein's chest under his shirt, and a second is bending to examine a adjacent device. Epstein can be seen to be aiding the third individual put on a bracelet.

Investigative Body

An additional photograph disclosed is a screenshot of text messages from an unidentified person who states they have been provided "several females" and are asking for "$$1,000 for each individual".

Photo Disclosure Arrives Ahead of DOJ Due Date

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

The oversight panel first legally compelled the estate of Epstein, who died in a New York prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on accusations of sex trafficking crimes, in August.

The photographs and documents the Epstein estate's representatives submitted to the body are distinct from what is often called "Epstein-related records". Those files are records in the DOJ's custody associated with its separate investigation into Epstein.

In accordance with the Transparency Act, which President Trump signed into law recently, the DOJ has a deadline of 19 December to publish its documents. The extent of what is found in the DOJ's documents is unclear, and it's expected that much of the material will be extensively redacted, akin to House Oversight Committee materials