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Investigative Body

The Congressional oversight panel has made public a collection of approximately 70 photos secured from the holdings of deceased adjudicated sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

This represents the third release from a tranche of more than 95,000 images the committee has acquired from Epstein's property. It contains pictures of quotes from the literary work Lolita scrawled across a female's body, and censored photos of women's foreign passports.

This action comes mere hours before the December 19th deadline for the Justice Department to make public every documents associated with its investigation into Epstein.

"These photographs pose additional inquiries about what exactly the DOJ has in its possession," said the senior Democrat of the panel, Robert Garcia.

What's in the Images Made Public

A number of the photos released on Thursday depict Epstein speaking with scholar and advocate Noam Chomsky inside a private plane; Bill Gates standing beside a female whose face is obscured; Steve Bannon seated at a desk facing Epstein, and former Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a dinner event.

Committee

These are the latest affluent, influential figures to be pictured in Epstein's estate images released by the oversight panel - earlier disclosed images also depict US President Donald Trump and former president Bill Clinton, as well as movie director Woody Allen, ex- US Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and other figures.

Showing up in the photos is is not considered proof of any wrongdoing, and several of the photographed men have asserted they were in no way participating in Epstein's illegal activity.

In a statement issued alongside the photo disclosure, Democratic members on the US House Oversight Committee said the Epstein estate did not supply context or dates for the photographs.

"Photographs were chosen to furnish the public with transparency into a typical cross-section of the photographs obtained from the holdings, and to provide perspectives into Epstein's network and his extremely disturbing behavior," the announcement reads.

Oversight Panel

The publication also features a number of images of passages from the Vladimir Nabokov novel Lolita written in black ink across several locations of a woman's body, such as her upper body, lower extremity, hip, and rear. Lolita recounts the tale of a young girl who was manipulated by a older literature professor.

A particular quote from the work scrawled across a female's chest says, "Lolita's name: the end of the tongue making a journey of three steps down the roof of the mouth to land, at three, on the teeth".

There are also a number of photographs of women's travel documents and ID papers from countries globally, including Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Investigative Body

A large portion of the details on the papers, such as names and dates of birth, is obscured but the committee indicated in a statement that the travel documents are associated with "individuals whom Jeffrey Epstein and his conspirators were interacting with".

An additional photograph features Epstein positioned at a table in close proximity in the company of three individuals whose identities have been obscured - a first has her palm on Epstein's chest under his garment, and another is bending to look at a adjacent computer. Epstein seems to be helping the third individual put on a wristband.

Investigative Body

A further photograph disclosed is a capture of text messages from an unnamed sender who claims they have been provided "several females" and are asking for "$$1,000 per girl".

Photograph Disclosure Arrives Before DOJ Deadline

The body has many thousands of photographs in its possession from the Epstein estate, which are "both disturbing and mundane," its press release on Thursday noted.

The oversight panel first legally compelled the holdings of Epstein, who passed away in a New York correctional facility in 2019 while awaiting trial on accusations of human trafficking, in August.

The photos and files the Epstein property gave to the body are separate from what is commonly referred to "Epstein-related records". Those are records under the Department of Justice's control related to its own inquiry into Epstein.

Under the Transparency Act, which Donald Trump signed into law recently, the DOJ has until 19 December to disclose 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 significantly censored, akin to the committee's materials