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Investigative Body

The House investigative committee has published a collection of around 70 photos obtained from the property of deceased adjudicated sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

This represents the third release from a larger collection of more than 95,000 photographs the panel has obtained from Epstein's holdings. It contains photographs of quotes from the book Lolita scrawled across a female's body, and obscured images of women's foreign passports.

This action occurs hours before the 19th of December cut-off for the DOJ to disclose each documents related to its probe into Epstein.

"These photos raise additional inquiries about what exactly the Justice Department has in its holdings," remarked the ranking member of the committee, Robert Garcia.

What is in the Photos Disclosed

Several of the photos made public on Thursday show Epstein conversing with scholar and advocate Noam Chomsky aboard a private plane; Bill Gates standing next to a female whose features is obscured; Steve Bannon positioned at a table across from Epstein, and former Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a dinner gathering.

Investigative Body

These are the latest high-net-worth, powerful figures to be pictured in Epstein property photographs published by the committee - previously disclosed pictures also depict US President Donald Trump and former president Bill Clinton, as well as film director Woody Allen, ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, attorney Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and others.

Appearing in the photographs is is not considered evidence of any wrongdoing, and a number of the pictured men have asserted they were never involved in Epstein's illegal activity.

In a press release issued alongside the image publication, Democrats on the US House Oversight Committee said the Epstein estate's representatives did not offer background information or timings for the pictures.

"Images were chosen to provide the public with transparency into a representative sample of the images obtained from the holdings, and to provide understanding into Epstein's circle and his profoundly disturbing activities," the statement says.

Committee

The release also contains multiple photographs of excerpts from the Vladimir Nabokov literary work Lolita penned in ink across several locations of a female's body, including her upper body, foot, hipbone, and spine. Lolita tells the tale of a young girl who was exploited by a middle-aged literature professor.

An example of a quote from the work scrawled across a woman's upper body states, "Lo-lee-ta: the end of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the mouth to alight, at three, on the teeth".

The release also contains a collection of photographs of women's travel documents and official papers from nations around the world, like Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Committee

Most of the data on the papers, like names and birth dates, is obscured but the committee stated in a announcement that the passports pertain to "females whom Jeffrey Epstein and his conspirators were engaging".

A further image depicts Epstein sitting at a desk intimately in the company of three individuals whose identities have been obscured - one individual has her hand on Epstein's upper body under his shirt, and another is bending to view a adjacent laptop. Epstein appears to be assisting the third individual put on a wristband.

Oversight Panel

Another photo made public is a capture of text messages from an unnamed person who claims they have been provided "several females" and are demanding "$1000 per girl".

Photo Publication Comes Before DOJ Cut-off

The panel has many thousands of photographs in its holdings from the Epstein holdings, which are "at once explicit and mundane," its statement on Thursday clarified.

The Congressional committee first subpoenaed the holdings of Epstein, who was found dead in a New York correctional facility in 2019 while awaiting trial on accusations of sex trafficking, in August.

The photographs and files the Epstein estate's representatives provided to the body are separate from what is often called "the Epstein documents". Those are documents in the Department of Justice's possession related to its independent investigation into Epstein.

Under the Transparency Act, which President Trump made law recently, the DOJ has until 19 December to release its files. The extent of what is included in the DOJ's documents is unknown, and it's likely that a large amount of the content will be heavily obscured, similar to Congressional documents