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Committee

The House investigative committee has made public a batch of approximately 70 images obtained from the property of former convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

This represents the third such release from a larger collection of in excess of 95,000 images the committee has obtained from Epstein's estate. It features images of quotes from the literary work Lolita scrawled across a woman's body, and redacted pictures of female overseas passports.

This release arrives hours before the 19 December due date for the DOJ to make public each files connected to its probe into Epstein.

"These latest photos bring up more queries about what exactly the Justice Department has in its custody," stated the ranking member of the committee, Robert Garcia.

What is in the Photographs Made Public

Several of the photographs made public on Thursday feature Epstein in discussion with academic and activist Noam Chomsky on a personal aircraft; Bill Gates positioned alongside a female whose features is redacted; Steve Bannon positioned at a table facing Epstein, and former Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a dinner event.

Investigative Body

These are the newest high-net-worth, influential men to be photographed in Epstein's estate images released by the oversight panel - earlier disclosed photos also depict US President Donald Trump and ex-president Bill Clinton, as well as director Woody Allen, previous US treasury secretary Larry Summers, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and others.

Showing up in the photographs is not indication of any misconduct, and a number of the photographed figures have asserted they were in no way participating in Epstein's unlawful actions.

In a statement accompanying the photo release, Lawmakers on the US House Oversight Committee said the Epstein estate did not provide explanatory details or timeframes for the pictures.

"Photographs were chosen to offer the American people with transparency into a typical cross-section of the photographs acquired from the property, and to give insights into Epstein's circle and his exceptionally troubling actions," the statement reads.

Investigative Body

The disclosure also contains a number of photographs of passages from the Vladimir Nabokov novel Lolita inscribed in black ink across various areas of a female's body, including her torso, lower extremity, hipbone, and rear. Lolita narrates the account of a minor who was manipulated by a middle-aged literature professor.

One passage from the work inscribed across a woman's chest reads, "Lolita's name: the end of the tongue making a journey 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 travel documents and official papers from countries globally, including Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Oversight Panel

The majority of the data on the documents, such as identities and birth dates, is censored but the committee stated in a statement that the travel documents belong to "individuals whom Jeffrey Epstein and his associates were interacting with".

An additional photograph depicts Epstein seated at a table intimately in the company of three women whose identities have been redacted - a first has her palm on Epstein's chest under his shirt, and a second is crouching to examine a close-by computer. Epstein seems to be assisting the third put on a piece of jewelry.

Committee

Another photograph made public is a image of digital messages from an unknown person who claims they have been provided "some girls" and are asking for "$1000 per female".

Photograph Disclosure Comes Prior to DOJ Due Date

The body has a vast number of photographs in its possession from the Epstein holdings, which are "both explicit and mundane," its press release on this week noted.

The oversight panel first issued a subpoena to the property of Epstein, who passed away in a New York correctional facility in 2019 while awaiting trial on accusations of sex trafficking crimes, in August.

The photos and files the Epstein estate gave to the body are distinct from what is largely termed "the Epstein documents". That material are documents within the DOJ's custody connected to its separate inquiry into Epstein.

Under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Donald Trump made law in November, the DOJ has a deadline of 19 December to disclose its records. The full nature of what's contained in the DOJ's records is unknown, and it's expected that much of the information will be heavily obscured, similar to the committee's materials