In the latest round of yearslong scrutiny related to Jeffrey Epstein’s trail of sexual abuse and the high-profile company he kept, MAGA architect Steve Bannon has played a prominent part, with a recently released cache of emails between him and Epstein showing the two men exchanging advice about a range of political and media issues. On Friday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released yet another batch of materials from Epstein’s estate, which added a visual component to the stew of intrigue. Among the 19 images on display was one of Bannon and Epstein, standing in front of a mirror and gazing at their half-smiling reflections as Epstein snapped a photo with his iPhone.
As with Bannon, the men depicted in these photos, which were gleaned from Epstein’s email account and released without additional context or details of their provenance, are already known to have associated with Epstein. They include Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Larry Summers, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and, in four instances, Woody Allen. (Representatives for these men and Bannon did not immediately return requests for comment.) One image features a bowl of condoms, produced by a New York novelty shop, bearing a caricature of Trump’s face with the text “I’m HUUUUGE!” Another shows Trump standing among six women wearing Hawaiian leis whose faces have been concealed, his arm around one of their waists.
House Oversight Committee Democrats.
House Oversight Committee Democrats.
“It is time to end this White House cover-up and bring justice to the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and his powerful friends,” House Oversight Committee member Robert Garcia said in a statement. “These disturbing photos raise even more questions about Epstein and his relationships with some of the most powerful men in the world. We will not rest until the American people get the truth. The Department of Justice must release all the files, NOW.”
The photos come a week before a deadline established by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed into law last month, which requires the DOJ to release all unclassified materials related to its investigations of Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell within 30 days. The scope of that release remains unclear: The bill includes a provision that the DOJ is permitted to withhold certain information that “would jeopardize an active federal investigation,” and just days before it was signed, Trump wrote on Truth Social, “I will be asking A.G. Pam Bondi, and the Department of Justice, together with our great patriots at the FBI, to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement and relationship with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, J.P. Morgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions, to determine what was going on with them, and him.”
House Oversight Committee Democrats.
House Oversight Committee Democrats.
The new images offer some glimpses of Epstein’s MO when it came to collecting influential friends and associations. There is an element of haphazardness, for instance, in a new image of Bannon and Allen engaged in ostensibly affectionate conversation, and Epstein was long known for bringing together successful figures from seemingly far-flung worlds at his Manhattan gatherings. While the release of new Epstein materials invariably provides new fodder for observers of the broader spectacle—earlier on Friday, the New York Post reported that his antique Viennese desk went up for sale at a New Jersey auction house—it has also, in the lead-up to the release of the Epstein files, sometimes come with real consequences. Summers, who is pictured in the new images on a plane with Allen, took a leave of absence from Harvard and resigned from several advisory roles after cozy emails between him and Epstein surfaced last month.
