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Committee

The Congressional oversight panel has released a set of around 70 photos from the estate of former adjudicated sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

This constitutes the third publication from a cache of in excess of 95,000 photos the panel has secured from Epstein's holdings. It includes images of passages from the literary work Lolita written across a female's body, and redacted pictures of women's foreign passports.

This disclosure comes just hours before the December 19th due date for the DOJ to release every records connected to its investigation into Epstein.

"These new photographs bring up further inquiries about what exactly the Justice Department has in its holdings," stated the ranking member of the committee, Robert Garcia.

Contents in the Photos Released

Several of the photos published on Thursday depict Epstein speaking with professor and activist Noam Chomsky aboard a private plane; Bill Gates positioned alongside a woman whose face is censored; Steve Bannon positioned at a table opposite Epstein, and former Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a evening meal.

Investigative Body

These are the newest wealthy, influential figures to be photographed in Epstein's estate photographs published by the committee - previously released photos also include US President Donald Trump and ex-president Bill Clinton, as well as director Woody Allen, ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, counsel Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and additional individuals.

Being pictured in the images is not evidence of any misconduct, and a number of the featured men have asserted they were not involved in Epstein's illegal activity.

In a press release released with the photo publication, Democrats on the US House Oversight Committee stated the Epstein property holders did not supply context or dates for the pictures.

"Photographs were picked to furnish the American people with openness into a representative sample of the images obtained from the holdings, and to give perspectives into Epstein's network and his extremely disturbing actions," the statement says.

Investigative Body

The release also features a number of images of passages from the Vladimir Nabokov literary work Lolita inscribed in black ink across different parts of a woman's body, such as her chest, lower extremity, hip, and rear. Lolita tells the tale of a adolescent who was exploited by a adult literature professor.

An example of a quote from the novel scrawled across a woman's torso reads, "Lolita's name: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the roof of the mouth to land, at three, on the teeth".

The release also contains a series of photos of female travel documents and official papers from nations around the world, including Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Oversight Panel

A large portion of the information on the documents, such as identities and birth dates, is censored but the House Oversight Committee stated in a statement that the passports belong to "females whom Jeffrey Epstein and his conspirators were interacting with".

An additional photograph shows Epstein seated at a table in close proximity surrounded by three individuals whose identities have been censored - a first has her hand on Epstein's chest under his garment, and another is crouching to view a adjacent laptop. Epstein can be seen to be helping the final person attach a wristband.

Investigative Body

A further photograph released is a capture of SMS messages from an unidentified individual who claims they have been sent "a number of girls" and are requesting "$one thousand dollars per female".

Image Release Occurs Prior to DOJ Due Date

The committee has thousands of photos in its holdings from the Epstein property, which are "both disturbing and everyday," its announcement on Thursday explained.

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

The photographs and records the Epstein property provided to the committee are separate from what is often termed "the Epstein documents". Those are papers in the DOJ's possession related to its independent probe into Epstein.

Pursuant to the Transparency Act, which Donald Trump made law in November, the DOJ has until 19 December to disclose its documents. The full nature of the contents contained in the DOJ's documents is unknown, and it's expected that a large amount of the information will be extensively obscured, comparable to Congressional documents