Congressional Democrats Release Newest Collection of Jeffrey Epstein Photographs as Justice Department Time Limit Nears
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The House Oversight Committee has published a collection of approximately 70 photos obtained from the property of late convicted individual convicted of sex crimes Jeffrey Epstein.
This constitutes the third release from a larger collection of in excess of 95,000 photographs the panel has secured from Epstein's estate. It includes images of passages from the book Lolita written across a woman's body, and censored photos of female international passports.
This action arrives hours before the 19 December deadline for the Justice Department to release each files connected to its inquiry into Epstein.
"These new photographs raise further queries about exactly what the Justice Department has in its possession," stated the ranking member of the panel, Robert Garcia.
Contents in the Images Made Public
Several of the images released on recently feature Epstein speaking with professor and activist Noam Chomsky aboard a private plane; Bill Gates positioned alongside a female whose identity is redacted; Steve Bannon positioned at a table across from Epstein, and ex- Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a dinner event.
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These are the newest high-net-worth, influential figures to be pictured in Epstein estate images released by the oversight panel - previously disclosed images also depict US President Donald Trump and former president Bill Clinton, as well as movie director Woody Allen, former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, attorney Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and other figures.
Showing up in the photos is not proof of any misconduct, and many of the pictured figures have asserted they were in no way implicated in Epstein's unlawful actions.
In a statement issued alongside the photo publication, Democratic members on the US House Oversight Committee said the Epstein property holders did not provide explanatory details or timeframes for the pictures.
"Images were chosen to furnish the general populace with transparency into a representative sample of the photos received from the estate, and to give understanding into Epstein's network and his profoundly troubling activities," the release reads.
Oversight Panel
The disclosure also features a number of images of quotes from the Vladimir Nabokov novel Lolita penned in ink across different parts of a woman's body, including her upper body, foot, pelvis, and spine. Lolita narrates the story of a young girl who was groomed by a older literature professor.
An example of a excerpt from the novel inscribed across a female's chest says, "Lolita: the end 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 images of female passports and identification documents from nations globally, like Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.
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The majority of the details on the IDs, such as identities and dates of birth, is obscured but the committee said in a announcement that the travel documents are associated with "women whom Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators were involved with".
A further photograph features Epstein sitting at a workstation closely surrounded by three individuals whose identities have been redacted - one individual has her hand on Epstein's upper body under his clothing, and another individual is bending to view a adjacent device. Epstein can be seen to be assisting the third put on a wristband.
Oversight Panel
An additional photo released is a screenshot of text messages from an unnamed person who says they have been sent "a number of girls" and are demanding "$$1,000 per girl".
Photo Disclosure Occurs Prior to DOJ Deadline
The panel has many thousands of photos in its custody from the Epstein estate, which are "at once graphic and ordinary," its announcement on Thursday explained.
The oversight panel first subpoenaed the holdings of Epstein, who passed away in a New York prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on allegations of sex trafficking crimes, in August.
The photos and files the Epstein property submitted to the committee are distinct from what is largely referred to "the Epstein documents". Those files are papers under the justice department's control connected to its separate investigation into Epstein.
Under the Transparency Act, which the President enacted in November, the DOJ has a deadline of 19 December to disclose its records. The scope of what's included in the DOJ's records is not publicly known, and it's expected that a large amount of the information will be significantly obscured, comparable to House Oversight Committee documents