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U.S. House Democrats released several dozen more photos Thursday from the estate of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, showing his associations with the rich and famous, as the Department of Justice faces a deadline to release many of its case files on the late financier by the end of the week.
The photos released Thursday were among more than 95,000 that the House Oversight Committee has received after issuing a subpoena for the photos that Epstein had in his possession before he died in a New York jail cell in 2019.
U.S. Congress has also passed, and President Donald Trump has signed, a law requiring the Justice Department to release its case files on Epstein, and his longtime girlfriend and confidante Ghislaine Maxwell, by Friday.
Anticipation about what those files will show is running high after they have been the subject of conspiracy theories and speculation about his friendships with Trump, former president Bill Clinton, former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and others others.
House Democrats have already released dozens of photos from Epstein’s estate showing Trump, Clinton and Mountbatten-Windsor, who lost his royal title and privileges this year amid scrutiny of his relationship with the wealthy financier.
The photos released Thursday showed Epstein cooking with Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, an Emirati businessman. Another shows Epstein chatting with professor and political activist Noam Chomsky on board a private plane.
Linguist Noam Chomsky chats with Epstein aboard a private jet. Chomsky is one of many notable people who were known to associate with the late convicted sex offender. (House Oversight Committee Democrats/Handout/Reuters)
The photos also include the billionaire Bill Gates and images of a 2011 dinner for notable people and wealthy philanthropists hosted by a nonprofit group. Former Trump aide Steve Bannon was also pictured in the latest batch of images.
The committee made no accusations of wrongdoing by the men in the photos.
Reuters news agency reached out for comment to representatives for Gates, Chomsky and Bannon but did not immediately receive responses.
Emirati businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem cooks in a kitchen alongside Epstein, in one of the many photographs House Oversight Committee Democrats released on Thursday. (House Oversight Committee Democrats/Handout/Reuters)
The latest batch of images includes closeups of sentences from Lolita, a book about a man’s obsession with a 12-year-old girl, scribbled in black ink across a woman’s body, chest, foot, neck and back.
There were also images of passports, visas and identification cards from Russia, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, South Africa and Lithuania with personally identifying information redacted, as well as photos of Epstein with women or girls whose faces were blacked out.
Epstein appears with a woman, whose identity has been obscured, in an undated photo aboard a private plane. (House Oversight Committee Democrats/Handout/Reuters)
The committee has said it is redacting information from the photos that may lead to the identity of victims being revealed.
Committee Democrats said the images released Thursday “were selected to provide the public with transparency into a representative sample of the photos” and “to provide insights into Epstein’s network and his extremely disturbing activities.”
Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the oversight panel, said in a statement that the “new images raise more questions about what exactly the Department of Justice has in its possession.
“We must end this White House coverup, and the DOJ must release the Epstein files now.”
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the latest release changes nothing. “President Trump has been consistently calling for transparency related to the Epstein files and his administation has delivered,” she said in a statement.
WATCH | Who appeared in photos from Epstein’s estate:
Trump, Clinton and Gates seen in new Epstein photos released by Democrats
U.S. House Democrats released new images from the estate of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that feature U.S. President Donald Trump and other high profile people previously linked to Epstein.
