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Oversight Panel

The House investigative committee has published a set of roughly 70 images secured from the holdings of deceased adjudicated sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

This marks the third such release from a larger collection of in excess of 95,000 photos the body has acquired from Epstein's holdings. It features photographs of quotes from the literary work Lolita scrawled across a female's body, and obscured images of women's foreign passports.

This release comes hours before the 19 December due date for the DOJ to make public every files associated with its inquiry into Epstein.

"These new images bring up more inquiries about precisely what the DOJ has in its possession," said the Democratic lead of the panel, Robert Garcia.

What is in the Photos Made Public

Some of the photographs published on recently depict Epstein speaking with professor and activist Noam Chomsky aboard a personal aircraft; Bill Gates positioned beside a woman whose features is redacted; Steve Bannon sitting at a workstation across from Epstein, and previous Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a dinner gathering.

Committee

These are the most recent wealthy, prominent figures to be photographed in Epstein property images disclosed by the oversight panel - formerly released photos also depict US President Donald Trump and former president Bill Clinton, as well as director Woody Allen, previous US treasury secretary Larry Summers, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and additional individuals.

Appearing in the images is not proof of any wrongdoing, and a number of the pictured individuals have asserted they were not implicated in Epstein's unlawful actions.

In a announcement accompanying the photograph disclosure, Democrats on the US House Oversight Committee stated the Epstein estate's representatives did not offer context or timings for the pictures.

"Photos were chosen to offer the American people with openness into a typical cross-section of the photos acquired from the estate, and to provide insights into Epstein's associates and his profoundly troubling actions," the announcement states.

Investigative Body

The publication also contains multiple photos of quotes from the Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita written in ink across different parts of a female's body, like her torso, foot, pelvis, and back. Lolita narrates the account of a adolescent who was manipulated by a adult literature professor.

One excerpt from the novel scrawled across a woman's torso reads, "Lolita's name: the point of the tongue making a journey of three steps down the mouth to land, at three, on the teeth".

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

Committee

The majority of the information on the documents, including identities and DOBs, is obscured but the panel said in a announcement that the passports are associated with "females whom Jeffrey Epstein and his associates were involved with".

Another photo features Epstein sitting at a desk closely surrounded by three female figures whose identities have been redacted - one individual has her hand on Epstein's upper body under his shirt, and another is bending to look at a adjacent device. Epstein can be seen to be aiding the final person attach a piece of jewelry.

Committee

An additional photograph disclosed is a image of SMS messages from an unidentified individual who states they have been provided "several females" and are asking for "$1000 per female".

Image Release Arrives Prior to DOJ Cut-off

The body has many thousands of photos in its possession from the Epstein holdings, which are "both graphic and everyday," its announcement on this week noted.

The oversight panel first subpoenaed the property of Epstein, who was found dead in a New York correctional facility in 2019 while awaiting trial on allegations of sex trafficking, in August.

The photos and records the Epstein estate submitted to the panel are separate from what is commonly called "the Epstein files". Those files are documents in the Department of Justice's possession connected to its independent probe into Epstein.

Under the Transparency Act, which the President signed into law in November, the DOJ has a deadline of 19 December to publish its files. The scope of what's included in the DOJ's files is unclear, and it's expected that much of the information will be significantly obscured, akin to House Oversight Committee materials