WASHINGTON ― Democrats on the House Oversight Committee on Thursday released a new batch of photos from the thousands of documents obtained from the late sex predator Jeffrey Epstein’s estate.
Some of the photos are disturbing, showing women’s bodies with lines from the novel “Lolita” written on their skin. Other images appear to show Epstein socializing with the likes of Noam Chomsky, Sergey Brin, Bill Gates and David Brooks.
“Oversight Democrats will continue to release photographs and documents from the Epstein estate to provide transparency for the American people,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the committee, said in a press release.
Some pictures show passports, which have been redacted, and a text message seemingly describes efforts to recruit girls, presumably for sex.
“I have a friend scourt she sent me some girls today,” the unknown sender says in the undated message. “But she asks 1000$ per girl.”
It’s the third photo dump from the Epstein estate, which the Republican-led House Committee subpoenaed earlier this year after the Wall Street Journal reported on a “birthday book” featuring a creepy message to Epstein from President Donald Trump. Trump denied having written the birthday note, claiming in court that the paper made it up. The subpoena proved it was real.
The new images dropped a day before a legal deadline for the Justice Department to make public almost everything it has on the late financier, who died while awaiting trial for sex trafficking crimes in 2019. Congress passed a law last month requiring the material to be placed in a public, searchable database within 30 days. The Trump administration previously refused to release the documents.
“As we approach the deadline for the Epstein Files Transparency Act, these new images raise more questions about what exactly the Department of Justice has in its possession,” Garcia said. “We must end this White House cover-up, and the DOJ must release the Epstein files now.”
House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-Ky.) has previously criticized Democrats for releasing small batches of photos from the thousands received. The estate handed over 95,000 images last week, including several that showed Trump and former President Bill Clinton.
“We just take a little more responsibility and try to redact what needs to be redacted, and we don’t try to create a false narrative,” Comer told HuffPost on Thursday. “The Democrats try to spoon-feed the media into thinking there’s something wrong with Trump or whatever.”
The images from Epstein’s estate are separate from the files at the Justice Department. Some of the 70 pictures Democrats released Thursday show Google co-founder Sergey Brin talking with New York Times columnist David Brooks, apparently at an event in 2011.
“As a journalist, David Brooks regularly attends events to speak with noted and important business leaders to inform his columns, which is exactly what happened at this 2011 event,” Danielle Rhoades Ha, senior vice president of communications at The New York Times, told HuffPost in a statement. “Mr. Brooks had no contact with him before or after this single attendance at a widely-attended dinner.”
Epstein was first convicted of sex crimes in 2008, though the Justice Department declined to press federal charges at the time as part of a controversial agreement with Epstein’s lawyers. He had a falling out with Trump sometime around 2004.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
