On the eve of the deadline to release the federal files on the financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the US House Democrats released a fresh batch of pictures from Epstein's estate, in a bid to mount pressure on the Donald Trump administration to release the files.
What do the newly released pictures show?
The US House Democrats have released a cache of 68 photographs from Jeffrey Epstein's estate that had been obtained from the island by the US Congress. These photographs are part of a much larger collection, which is being slowly released to the public.
The photographs were released on the official X handle of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Democrats (@OversightDems) through a cloud storage link. The photos show famed academician Noam Chomsky sitting with Epstein on what appears to be an aircraft, along with images of Microsoft founder Bill Gates standing next to a woman whose face has been blurred.
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The collection also contains photos of filmmaker Woody Allen and former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, both of whom had appeared in an earlier release. The newly published images do not seem to show any illegal activity by those pictured, though one screenshot includes part of a text exchange in which an unidentified sender appears to discuss recruiting young women.
The screenshot reads, "I have a friend scout she sent me some girls today. But she asks 1000$ per girl. I will send u girls now. Maybe someone will be good for J?" You can access the cloud storage link shared by the Oversight Dems here.
Another image shows a woman's foot with a handwritten quote from Vladimir Nabokov's 'Lolita', a novel about a man's sexual obsession with a child. this picture has also been released without any explanation. The new batch also includes photos of passports and identity documents from several countries, with most personal details redacted. Many of the documents are marked "female", including passports from countries such as Ukraine and Russia, and several faces in the images have been blurred to protect identities.
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Will the Epstein files be released today?
The US Justice Department has not made it clear whether it will meet Friday's deadline under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was passed last month with bipartisan support. The law mandates the release of the most extensive set of Epstein-related materials to date, while ensuring victims' identities are protected, NDTV reported.
