Democrats release latest batch of photos as Epstein deadline looms

The House Oversight Committee has released a group of nearly 70 photos from the estate of late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

This is the third release in this tranche of more than 95,000 photographs the committee obtained from Epstein’s estate. There are images of quotes from the book Lolita written on a woman’s body and corrected images of women’s foreign passports.

It came hours before the Dec. 19 deadline for the Justice Department to release all files related to its investigation into Epstein.

“These new images raise more questions about what exactly the Justice Department has at its disposal,” said Robert Garcia, the committee’s ranking member.

Some of the photos released Thursday show Epstein speaking with professor and activist Noam Chomsky on a private plane; Bill Gates standing next to a woman with a corrected face; Steve Bannon and former Alphabet chairman Sergey Brin, seated across the table from Epstein at a dinner event.

These are the latest rich and powerful men seen in Epstein mansion photos released by the House Oversight Committee; Previously released photos also show US President Donald Trump and former president Bill Clinton, as well as film director Woody Allen, former US treasury secretary Larry Summers, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Mountbatton-Windsor and others.

His appearance in the photos is not evidence of any wrongdoing, and most of the men in the photo have said they were never involved in Epstein’s illegal activities.

In a statement accompanying the photo release, Democrats on the U.S. House Oversight Committee said the Epstein estate did not provide context or timing for the images.

“The photos were selected to provide transparency to the public of a representative sample of photographs from the mansion and to provide insight into Epstein’s network and its deeply disturbing activities,” the statement said.

The publication also includes several photographs of quotes from Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita written in black ink on different parts of a woman’s body, such as her chest, feet, hipbone and back. Lolita tells the story of a young girl raised by a middle-aged literature professor.

A quote from the book written on a woman’s chest reads: “Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue descends three steps from the palate, touching the teeth on three”.

There are also many women’s passport and ID photos from countries around the world, including Lithuania, Russia, Czech Republic and Ukraine.

Much of the information in the documents, such as names and dates of birth, has been redacted, but the House Oversight Committee said in a press release that the passports belonged to “women to whom Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators were engaged.”

In another photograph, Epstein is seen seated at a table closely surrounded by three female figures whose faces have been rearranged; one has his hand on Epstein’s chest under his shirt, and the other is crouched down to stare at a nearby laptop. Epstein appears to be helping the third person put on the bracelet.

Another image published is a screenshot of text messages from an unknown person saying they were sent to “some girls” and asking for “$1,000 per girl.”

In a statement on Thursday, it was stated that the committee was in possession of thousands of images “both graphic and mundane” from the Epstein estate.

The House Oversight Committee first issued subpoenas in August to the estate of Epstein, who died in a New York prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking allegations.

The photographs and files the Epstein estate gave to the committee are largely separate from the so-called “Epstein files.” These are documents the justice department has in its possession related to its own investigation into Epstein.

Under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which President Trump signed into law last month, the Justice Department has until December 19 to release its files. The scope of the contents of the DOJ files is unknown, and much of the content is likely to be heavily redacted, similar to House Oversight Committee materials.