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Investigative Body

The House Oversight Committee has published a set of approximately 70 photos obtained from the property of late found guilty individual convicted of sex crimes Jeffrey Epstein.

This marks the third disclosure from a cache of in excess of 95,000 photos the committee has obtained from Epstein's estate. It features images of passages from the novel Lolita inscribed across a woman's body, and obscured pictures of women's foreign passports.

This disclosure arrives hours before the 19 December cut-off for the Justice Department to release each documents connected to its inquiry into Epstein.

"These new images bring up additional queries about exactly what the Justice Department has in its holdings," remarked the Democratic lead of the committee, Robert Garcia.

What is in the Photos Made Public

Several of the photos released on Thursday feature Epstein speaking with academic and activist Noam Chomsky aboard a private plane; Bill Gates standing beside a woman whose face is censored; Steve Bannon positioned at a table facing Epstein, and former Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a dinner event.

Committee

These are the most recent high-net-worth, prominent figures to be pictured in Epstein estate photographs disclosed by the House Oversight Committee - previously disclosed pictures also depict US President Donald Trump and ex-president Bill Clinton, as well as movie director Woody Allen, ex- US treasury secretary Larry Summers, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and other figures.

Appearing in the photographs is is not considered evidence of any illegal activity, and several of the pictured figures have said they were not participating in Epstein's unlawful actions.

In a statement released with the photo disclosure, Democratic members on the US House Oversight Committee stated the Epstein estate did not supply context or timings for the photographs.

"Photographs were selected to offer the public with clarity into a representative sample of the photographs received from the estate, and to give perspectives into Epstein's network and his profoundly troubling behavior," the announcement says.

Oversight Panel

The release also contains several photos of passages from the Vladimir Nabokov literary work Lolita inscribed in black ink across various areas of a female's body, including her upper body, lower extremity, hipbone, and spine. Lolita tells the story of a minor who was manipulated by a adult literature professor.

A particular quote from the work inscribed across a female's torso says, "Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue making a journey of three steps down the mouth to land, at three, on the teeth".

Additionally, there are a number of photos of female passports and ID papers from countries worldwide, including Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Committee

A large portion of the details on the papers, including identities and birth dates, is obscured but the panel stated in a statement that the passports pertain to "individuals whom Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators were involved with".

A further photograph depicts Epstein sitting at a desk in close proximity surrounded by three individuals whose faces have been redacted - one individual has her palm on Epstein's torso under his garment, and another is leaning to look at a adjacent device. Epstein seems to be aiding the third individual put on a wristband.

Investigative Body

A further photograph disclosed is a capture of text messages from an unnamed individual who says they have been sent "several females" and are asking for "$1000 for each individual".

Image Disclosure Comes Prior to DOJ Due Date

The body has many thousands of photos in its possession from the Epstein property, which are "at once disturbing and ordinary," its announcement on recently explained.

The Congressional committee first legally compelled the holdings of Epstein, who died in a New York correctional facility in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking crimes, in August.

The photos and records the Epstein estate's representatives gave to the body are different than what is often termed "the Epstein files". Those files are papers in the Department of Justice's control related to its independent inquiry into Epstein.

Under the recently passed law, which President Trump enacted last month, the DOJ has until 19 December to publish its documents. The scope of the contents included in the DOJ's records is unclear, and it's probable that much of the information will be heavily censored, comparable to House Oversight Committee releases