Congressional Democrats Release Most Recent Batch of Jeffrey Epstein Images as Department of Justice Deadline Looms
Committee
The House Oversight Committee has published a set of roughly 70 images from the estate of deceased convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.
This marks the third such disclosure from a tranche of in excess of 95,000 images the body has obtained from Epstein's estate. It includes pictures of quotes from the novel Lolita scrawled across a woman's body, and obscured photos of women's foreign passports.
This action comes just hours before the December 19th due date for the DOJ to release every records associated with its inquiry into Epstein.
"These photos bring up further inquiries about precisely what the Justice Department has in its holdings," remarked the Democratic lead of the panel, Robert Garcia.
What's in the Images Made Public
Several of the photos released on Thursday feature Epstein speaking with professor and activist Noam Chomsky on a private jet; Bill Gates standing next to a individual whose identity is redacted; Steve Bannon seated at a workstation across from Epstein, and former Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a dinner gathering.
Committee
These are the latest wealthy, powerful individuals to be pictured in Epstein property photos published by the oversight panel - earlier disclosed images also depict US President Donald Trump and past 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 others.
Being pictured in the images is is not considered proof of any wrongdoing, and many of the pictured men have said they were in no way involved in Epstein's unlawful actions.
In a statement released with the image release, Democratic members on the US House Oversight Committee said the Epstein estate's representatives did not supply context or dates for the images.
"Photos were picked to furnish the public with openness into a illustrative selection of the images received from the estate, and to provide insights into Epstein's network and his profoundly troubling behavior," the release reads.
Committee
The disclosure also contains a number of photos of passages from the Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita written in ink across different parts of a female's body, including her torso, foot, pelvis, and spine. Lolita tells the account of a adolescent who was exploited by a adult literature professor.
An example of a quote from the novel inscribed across a woman's upper body states, "Lolita's name: the end of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the roof of the mouth to land, at three, on the teeth".
There are also a number of photos of female passports and identification documents from countries worldwide, like Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.
Investigative Body
Most of the information on the papers, including names and dates of birth, is redacted but the committee indicated in a announcement that the travel documents belong to "women whom Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators were involved with".
Another image features Epstein seated at a desk closely surrounded by three female figures whose identities have been redacted - a first has her hand on Epstein's chest under his clothing, and another is bending to look at a adjacent laptop. Epstein appears to be assisting the third individual attach a wristband.
Committee
A further photograph disclosed is a screenshot of text messages from an unidentified individual who says they have been provided "a number of girls" and are requesting "$one thousand dollars per girl".
Image Release Arrives Prior to DOJ Deadline
The committee has a vast number of photographs in its custody from the Epstein property, which are "simultaneously graphic and ordinary," its announcement 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 awaiting trial on accusations of human trafficking, in August.
The images and documents the Epstein property submitted to the panel are separate from what is often referred to "the Epstein documents". That material are records under the Department of Justice's possession connected to its own probe into Epstein.
Under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Donald Trump enacted last month, the DOJ has until 19 December to release its files. The extent of what's contained in the DOJ's files is not publicly known, and it's expected that a large amount of the material will be extensively obscured, similar to Congressional documents