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Oversight Panel

The House investigative committee has published a collection of roughly 70 photographs secured from the holdings of late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

This represents the third publication from a tranche of over 95,000 images the committee has secured from Epstein's holdings. It features images of passages from the novel Lolita written across a female's body, and obscured pictures of female overseas passports.

This action arrives hours before the December 19th cut-off for the Justice Department to disclose each records associated with its inquiry into Epstein.

"These latest images raise additional questions about precisely what the Justice Department has in its holdings," said the Democratic lead of the panel, Robert Garcia.

What's in the Photographs Disclosed

A number of the photos made public on this week show Epstein speaking with professor and activist Noam Chomsky aboard a private plane; Bill Gates positioned beside a female whose identity is censored; Steve Bannon seated at a desk across from Epstein, and ex- Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a dinner event.

Oversight Panel

These are the latest affluent, powerful men to be seen in Epstein estate photos published by the House Oversight Committee - formerly published images also show US President Donald Trump and past president Bill Clinton, as well as movie director Woody Allen, former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, attorney Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and other figures.

Being pictured in the images is does not constitute indication of any wrongdoing, and several of the featured figures have said they were not implicated in Epstein's unlawful actions.

In a statement accompanying the photo release, Democratic members on the US House Oversight Committee stated the Epstein estate did not offer context or timings for the images.

"Photos were chosen to offer the American people with openness into a representative sample of the photographs obtained from the property, and to offer understanding into Epstein's associates and his exceptionally alarming activities," the statement reads.

Investigative Body

The disclosure also includes multiple photos of quotes from the Vladimir Nabokov novel Lolita written in black ink across several locations of a woman's body, like her chest, lower extremity, pelvis, and back. Lolita recounts the story of a minor who was manipulated by a middle-aged literature professor.

One excerpt from the work written across a female's chest reads, "Lolita: the tip of the tongue making a journey of three steps down the palate to land, at three, on the teeth".

There are also a number of photos of women's identification and official papers from states globally, like Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Investigative Body

A large portion of the details on the IDs, such as names and birth dates, is redacted but the panel said in a announcement that the passports are associated with "women whom Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators were engaging".

Another image depicts Epstein seated at a workstation in close proximity flanked by three women whose features have been obscured - a first has her palm on Epstein's chest under his shirt, and another individual is bending to look at a adjacent laptop. Epstein can be seen to be aiding the third individual attach a wristband.

Committee

An additional photograph released is a screenshot of digital messages from an unknown person who says they have been supplied "some girls" and are demanding "$$1,000 per female".

Image Publication Comes Before DOJ Deadline

The panel has thousands of photos in its custody from the Epstein holdings, which are "both explicit and mundane," its press release on Thursday noted.

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

The images and files the Epstein property provided to the panel are separate from what is commonly termed "the Epstein files". Those are papers in the justice department's possession related to its separate inquiry into Epstein.

Under the recently passed law, which President Trump made law recently, the DOJ has until the date of 19 December to release its documents. The extent of what's contained in the DOJ's records is unclear, and it's expected that much of the information will be extensively redacted, comparable to Congressional releases