Democrats on the US House Oversight Committee have released a fresh batch of photographs drawn from a vast archive supplied by the estate of the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, publishing images that include President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton and other prominent figures as lawmakers intensify pressure on the administration to disclose federal records connected to Epstein and his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
The committee Democrats said the images come from a collection of more than 95,000 photographs that the estate provided to Congress, and that they plan to continue reviewing and releasing additional material in the days and weeks ahead. The release arrived as the Trump administration faces a looming deadline to publish files it holds under a law passed last month that requires the Justice Department to make public Epstein-related records within 30 days, while allowing redactions to protect survivors’ identities and other sensitive information.
In the newly posted photographs, some faces are obscured, and many images are presented without context about when they were taken or the circumstances in which they were shot. Committee Democrats and multiple news outlets reporting on the release stressed that the appearance of individuals in Epstein’s orbit does not, on its own, indicate wrongdoing. Still, the publication of additional images is likely to add fuel to a long-running political and public debate about the extent of Epstein’s connections and about what government agencies knew, investigated or documented in the years before his death.
Among the images cited by CBS News are photographs in which Trump appears, including one in which he is seen smiling while posing with several women whose faces are redacted, and another where he appears alongside Epstein while speaking with a woman. The images were released without details about the setting or date. The CBS report noted that Getty Images captured Trump and Epstein together at a Victoria’s Secret event in New York in 1997 that appears similar to the scene in one of the newly released photos.
Asked about the images at a White House event, Trump said he had not seen them, but sought to downplay their significance, saying Epstein “has photos with everybody” and that “it’s no big deal,” adding, “I know nothing about it.” Trump has previously acknowledged knowing Epstein socially in the 1990s and early 2000s, and has said he ended the relationship years ago.
The release also includes a photograph showing Clinton in a signed picture posing with Epstein, Maxwell and two other people, according to the CBS report. Clinton has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein. A spokesperson for Clinton said in 2019, after Epstein was indicted on federal charges, that Clinton took four trips on Epstein’s plane in 2002 and 2003, travelling to Europe, Asia and Africa for work tied to the Clinton Foundation, and that staff, foundation supporters and Secret Service personnel were present on every leg. The spokesperson said Clinton “knows nothing about the terrible crimes” Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida or the allegations that later emerged.
Beyond Trump and Clinton, the published images feature other well-known names. CBS reported that photographs include Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and, in at least one image, Gates appears alongside Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, previously known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Gates has previously addressed his meetings with Epstein, saying in 2021 that spending time with Epstein was a “huge mistake,” after initially seeking to minimise the relationship.
The photographs also include former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, filmmaker Woody Allen, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, inventor Dean Kamen and entrepreneur Richard Branson, according to the same reporting. Summers resigned from a range of roles after documents released earlier in the year showed email exchanges with Epstein, CBS reported. Allen has previously said his ties to Epstein were limited to social gatherings and that his wife was present, while images released by committee Democrats show him in multiple settings with figures in Epstein’s circle.
The political stakes around the releases have continued to rise. Republicans on the Oversight Committee and the White House accused committee Democrats of selectively releasing images to “create a false narrative,” according to CBS, with the White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson criticising what she described as “cherry-picked” photos and “random redactions.” Committee Democrats, led by ranking member Robert Garcia, have argued the material is essential to transparency and accountability, particularly given the long list of powerful people who crossed paths with Epstein.
In an earlier statement tied to a separate production of “never-before-seen” photos and videos from Epstein’s private island in the US Virgin Islands, Garcia described the material as “a disturbing look into the world of Jeffrey Epstein and his island,” and said Democrats were releasing images “to ensure public transparency” and to help piece together a fuller picture of Epstein’s crimes. “We won’t stop fighting until we deliver justice for the survivors. It’s time for President Trump to release all the files, now,” Garcia said.
That statement said the committee had also received records from JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank, and that Democrats intended to release files after reviewing them. The banks have been central to civil litigation and investigative scrutiny surrounding Epstein’s finances, and lawmakers have portrayed banking records as potentially illuminating the networks and transactions that enabled his activities.
The new release also sits alongside a broader legal and investigative effort to unseal and publish records from Epstein and Maxwell cases. CBS reported that federal judges have ordered grand jury material and investigative records to be unsealed following renewed Justice Department requests after enactment of the new transparency law. Epstein was arrested in July 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges, and died by suicide in a Manhattan jail weeks later while awaiting trial, according to widely reported accounts referenced by CBS. Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of sex trafficking-related charges and is serving a 20-year sentence, CBS reported.
The scale of the material now being sifted by lawmakers is immense. CBS reported that, separate from the estate’s production, the Justice Department has produced tens of thousands of documents to the Oversight Committee as part of the committee’s investigation, while the estate continues to provide additional batches of photographs. Democrats said the trove contains images of Epstein’s properties and “thousands of photographs of women,” as well as images of “wealthy and powerful men” who spent time with him, and they indicated further public releases are expected.
For survivors of Epstein’s abuse and for investigators who have long argued that key questions remain unanswered, the latest release is likely to be viewed through a lens shaped by years of frustration with the pace and limits of disclosure. For politicians, it has become a high-profile battle over transparency, redaction standards and accountability, with the White House and committee Republicans accusing Democrats of weaponising the material and Democrats arguing that controlled public release is necessary to counter secrecy and delay.
The administration’s deadline under the new law is expected to sharpen those arguments further. CBS reported that the measure, referred to as the Epstein Files Transparency Act, requires the Justice Department to publicly release files related to Epstein and Maxwell within 30 days, subject to limited exceptions including protections for survivors’ personal information and other sensitive material. The next steps will likely be contested in real time: what is released, what is withheld, how names are handled and how agencies justify any redactions.
In the meantime, the photographs already published offer a stark illustration of Epstein’s proximity to power and celebrity over many years, even as he faced criminal allegations and, in 2008, a conviction in Florida for state prostitution charges. The images do not provide a complete record of conduct, context or culpability. But they have added to the body of publicly available evidence showing how Epstein cultivated access, and they have intensified calls for the government to disclose what it knows about the networks and systems that allowed him to operate for so long.