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Committee

The Congressional oversight panel has published a batch of around 70 photographs obtained from the property of deceased convicted individual convicted of sex crimes Jeffrey Epstein.

This represents the third such publication from a tranche of more than 95,000 photos the committee has acquired from Epstein's holdings. It includes pictures of excerpts from the book Lolita inscribed across a female's body, and redacted photos of female foreign passports.

This action occurs just hours before the 19 December cut-off for the Justice Department to make public every files connected to its inquiry into Epstein.

"These new photos pose more queries about exactly what the Justice Department has in its custody," stated the senior Democrat of the panel, Robert Garcia.

What's in the Images Disclosed

Some of the images published on this week depict Epstein conversing with academic and activist Noam Chomsky inside a private jet; Bill Gates seen alongside a woman whose face is redacted; Steve Bannon seated at a desk opposite Epstein, and previous Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a evening meal.

Investigative Body

These are the latest wealthy, influential individuals to be seen in Epstein property photographs released by the committee - earlier published pictures also include US President Donald Trump and past president Bill Clinton, as well as movie director Woody Allen, previous US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and additional individuals.

Being pictured in the photographs is is not considered evidence of any illegal activity, and a number of the photographed individuals have stated they were not participating in Epstein's criminal activity.

In a statement accompanying the photograph publication, Democrats on the US House Oversight Committee stated the Epstein estate did not offer background information or timings for the images.

"Photos were selected to offer the public with openness into a representative sample of the images acquired from the estate, and to provide perspectives into Epstein's associates and his profoundly troubling activities," the statement reads.

Investigative Body

The publication also includes a number of photographs of passages from the Vladimir Nabokov novel Lolita inscribed in ink across several locations of a female's body, such as her torso, foot, hipbone, and spine. Lolita narrates the account of a adolescent who was manipulated by a older literature professor.

One passage from the work scrawled across a female's torso reads, "Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue traveling of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth".

The release also contains a number of photographs of women's identification and official papers from countries globally, such as Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Investigative Body

Most of the data on the papers, such as names and birth dates, is redacted but the panel stated in a announcement that the travel documents belong to "women whom Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators were engaging".

A further image features Epstein seated at a workstation intimately flanked by three female figures whose identities have been redacted - one has her palm on Epstein's upper body under his clothing, and another is bending to examine a close-by laptop. Epstein appears to be assisting the third individual fasten a bracelet.

Committee

Another photograph made public is a screenshot of SMS messages from an unnamed individual who states they have been provided "a number of girls" and are demanding "$$1,000 per girl".

Image Disclosure Comes Prior to DOJ Cut-off

The body has thousands of photos in its possession from the Epstein property, which are "simultaneously graphic and everyday," its press release on recently explained.

The House Oversight Committee first legally compelled the property of Epstein, who died in a New York correctional facility in 2019 while facing trial on allegations of sex trafficking crimes, in August.

The photographs and documents the Epstein estate's representatives provided to the committee are distinct from what is often called "the Epstein files". Those files are papers within the justice department's possession associated with its independent investigation into Epstein.

Pursuant to the Transparency Act, which President Trump enacted in November, the DOJ has a deadline of 19 December to disclose its records. The full nature of the contents contained in the DOJ's files is not publicly known, and it's probable that much of the material will be heavily censored, comparable to Congressional releases