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Oversight Panel

The Congressional oversight panel has published a set of around 70 photos secured from the holdings of deceased convicted individual convicted of sex crimes Jeffrey Epstein.

This represents the latest in a series of release from a tranche of in excess of 95,000 photos the body has secured from Epstein's property. It contains photographs of excerpts from the book Lolita inscribed across a woman's body, and censored photos of female foreign passports.

This release arrives mere hours before the 19 December deadline for the Justice Department to release all documents associated with its inquiry into Epstein.

"These new photos raise additional questions about precisely what the Justice Department has in its custody," stated the senior Democrat of the committee, Robert Garcia.

Contents in the Images Disclosed

Several of the images released on Thursday depict Epstein speaking with academic and activist Noam Chomsky aboard a private plane; Bill Gates standing alongside a female whose face is redacted; Steve Bannon positioned at a table facing Epstein, and former Alphabet president Sergey Brin at a evening meal.

Investigative Body

These are the most recent affluent, influential individuals to be pictured in Epstein property photographs disclosed by the committee - earlier published images also depict US President Donald Trump and former president Bill Clinton, as well as film director Woody Allen, previous US treasury secretary Larry Summers, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor, and others.

Showing up in the photographs is does not constitute evidence of any wrongdoing, and a number of the featured men have said they were not implicated in Epstein's unlawful actions.

In a statement issued alongside the image publication, Lawmakers on the US House Oversight Committee stated the Epstein property holders did not offer context or dates for the photographs.

"Photographs were picked to offer the general populace with transparency into a typical cross-section of the images acquired from the holdings, and to provide perspectives into Epstein's associates and his profoundly troubling activities," the announcement reads.

Committee

The disclosure also features a number of images of quotes from the Vladimir Nabokov literary work Lolita written in dark ink across different parts of a female's body, such as her upper body, foot, hip, and spine. Lolita tells the story of a adolescent who was exploited by a adult literature professor.

A particular quote from the work inscribed across a woman's upper body says, "Lolita: the end of the tongue making a journey of three steps down the roof of the mouth to land, at three, on the teeth".

Additionally, there are a collection of images of women's travel documents and identification documents from countries worldwide, including Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

Committee

Most of the information on the documents, such as names and birth dates, is obscured but the committee indicated in a press release that the passports belong to "individuals whom Jeffrey Epstein and his associates were interacting with".

A further image depicts Epstein seated at a workstation closely surrounded by three individuals whose faces have been censored - a first has her palm on Epstein's torso under his clothing, and a second is bending to examine a adjacent computer. Epstein appears to be helping the final person attach a wristband.

Committee

An additional photo released is a image of digital messages from an unnamed individual who states they have been sent "some girls" and are requesting "$1000 per girl".

Image Release Occurs Ahead of DOJ Deadline

The body has thousands of images in its possession from the Epstein holdings, which are "simultaneously explicit and ordinary," its press release on Thursday clarified.

The House Oversight Committee first subpoenaed the holdings of Epstein, who passed away in a New York correctional facility in 2019 while pending legal proceedings on allegations of sex trafficking, in August.

The photos and documents the Epstein estate gave to the committee are separate from what is often referred to "the Epstein files". Those files are papers in the Department of Justice's possession related to its separate probe into Epstein.

Pursuant to the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which the President made law recently, the DOJ has until 19 December to publish its documents. The full nature of what's included in the DOJ's documents is unclear, and it's expected that much of the material will be extensively redacted, comparable to Congressional materials