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Democratic lawmakers have released more than a dozen photos from the estate of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, including several images of Donald Trump.
The 19 photos published by Democrats on the House oversight committee on Friday include undated images of Epstein with high-profile figures including the US president, former president Bill Clinton, former Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Epstein is also pictured with longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon, filmmaker Woody Allen and billionaire Virgin founder Richard Branson.
All have denied any wrongdoing. Spokespeople for Clinton, Summers, Bannon and Branson did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Representatives for Allen and Gates could not immediately be reached for comment.
Friday’s release marks the latest development in a long-running saga that has piled political pressure on the president and exposed divisions in his base over the federal government’s handling of the Epstein case.
House Democrats said they had received 95,000 pictures from the Epstein estate as part of lawmakers’ investigation into the financier. Epstein was found dead in 2019 in his prison cell, where he was awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
Trump has long acknowledged that he was at one time friends with Epstein, but has maintained that the two men had a falling out more than 20 years ago. The president has vehemently denied any involvement in Epstein’s crimes.
The president appeared in four undated photos released by House Democrats on Friday. Trump is pictured alongside Epstein in one of the images.
Trump said he had not seen the pictures, but added that “everybody knew this man. He was all over Palm Beach”.
“There are hundreds and hundreds of people that have photos with him.”
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson accused Democrats of “selectively releasing cherry-picked photos with random redactions to try and create a false narrative.”
“The Trump administration has done more for Epstein’s victims than Democrats ever have by repeatedly calling for transparency, releasing thousands of pages of documents, and calling for further investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends,” she added.
Friday’s release comes weeks after Trump signed into law a bill directing the US Department of Justice to release its files relating to Epstein. The bill passed Congress with near unanimous support after an eleventh-hour U-turn by the president, who encouraged lawmakers to vote in favour of releasing the files.
The legislation orders US attorney-general Pam Bondi to hand over all unclassified material in the Epstein case by December 19. These files are yet to be published.
“It is time to end this White House cover-up and bring justice to the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and his powerful friends,” Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the oversight committee, said in a statement accompanying the photos on Friday.
“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.”
In a statement, Republicans on the House oversight committee accused their Democratic counterparts of “chasing headlines,” adding that “nothing” in the documents they had received “shows any wrongdoing. Democrats had put “politics above justice for the survivors,” they added.
Additional reporting by Guy Chazan in New York
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