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Committee

The Congressional oversight panel has made public a collection of approximately 70 photos secured from the holdings of former convicted individual convicted of sex crimes Jeffrey Epstein.

This marks the latest in a series of publication from a tranche of in excess of 95,000 photographs the panel has secured from Epstein's holdings. It features images of quotes from the book Lolita written across a female's body, and censored photos of women's international passports.

This disclosure occurs mere hours before the December 19th due date for the DOJ to release all records associated with its probe into Epstein.

"These new photographs raise further queries about precisely what the Justice Department has in its possession," stated the Democratic lead of the panel, Robert Garcia.

What's in the Photos Disclosed

Some of the photographs released on recently feature Epstein speaking with scholar and advocate Noam Chomsky inside a private jet; Bill Gates positioned alongside a female whose face is censored; Steve Bannon seated at a table facing Epstein, and former Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a dinner gathering.

Oversight Panel

These are the newest high-net-worth, influential men to be seen in Epstein property images published by the committee - earlier disclosed pictures also depict US President Donald Trump and ex-president Bill Clinton, as well as film director Woody Allen, former US Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and additional individuals.

Appearing in the photographs is does not constitute evidence of any illegal activity, and several of the featured men have stated they were never involved in Epstein's unlawful actions.

In a statement accompanying the image release, Lawmakers on the US House Oversight Committee said the Epstein estate did not supply context or timeframes for the images.

"Photographs were selected to provide the general populace with clarity into a representative sample of the images received from the holdings, and to provide understanding into Epstein's network and his extremely troubling behavior," the announcement states.

Investigative Body

The release also contains multiple photographs of quotes from the Vladimir Nabokov literary work Lolita penned in black ink across several locations of a female's body, like her upper body, lower extremity, pelvis, and spine. Lolita tells the account of a adolescent who was groomed by a middle-aged literature professor.

A particular passage from the novel written across a female's chest reads, "Lolita's name: the end of the tongue making a journey of three steps down the palate to alight, at three, on the teeth".

There are also a series of photographs of female passports and ID papers from countries globally, like Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Investigative Body

A large portion of the information on the IDs, such as names and DOBs, is obscured but the panel said in a press release that the passports belong to "women whom Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators were engaging".

Another image shows Epstein sitting at a workstation intimately surrounded by three women whose faces have been redacted - a first has her hand on Epstein's upper body under his garment, and a second is crouching to view a adjacent device. Epstein can be seen to be helping the third put on a wristband.

Oversight Panel

A further photo made public is a screenshot of text messages from an unidentified individual who claims they have been supplied "some girls" and are requesting "$$1,000 per female".

Image Publication Occurs Ahead of DOJ Due Date

The body has many thousands of photos in its custody from the Epstein holdings, which are "at once graphic and mundane," its announcement on Thursday explained.

The House Oversight Committee first subpoenaed the holdings of Epstein, who was found dead in a New York prison in 2019 while facing trial on accusations of human trafficking, in August.

The photos and documents the Epstein estate's representatives provided to the body are distinct from what is often referred to "Epstein-related records". Those files are records under the Department of Justice's possession associated with its independent inquiry into Epstein.

In accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Donald Trump made law last month, the DOJ has until 19 December to release its records. The scope of what is contained in the DOJ's documents is unclear, and it's likely that much of the information will be extensively censored, similar to House Oversight Committee releases