A spokesperson for The New York Times shared with WIRED that Brooks “regularly attends events to speak with noted and important business leaders to inform his columns.” They added that he had no interaction with Epstein before or after the 2011 dinner where the photo was taken. Meanwhile, the Gates Foundation’s representative has not yet responded to a request for comment, nor have the representatives for Google, Allen, Chomsky, and Bannon’s War Room podcast.
The recent document release features close-ups of women’s body parts with quotes from Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita scrawled on them, alongside a photo of a pill bottle typically used for urinary tract infection relief, and redacted travel documents from several countries, including Ukraine and Lithuania.
The House committee investigating Epstein has been on this case for months, which is separate from the document release expected from the US Department of Justice this week. The Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed into law last month, mandates that the DOJ release “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” in its possession by December 19.
As part of the investigation, the committee issued subpoenas to the Epstein estate, instructing it to produce two distinct sets of documents—one for the Democrats on the committee and another for the Republicans. As documents have been received from the estate, both Democrats and the committee as a whole have made their own disclosures. Information from these disclosures has sparked new inquiries regarding the well-established relationship between Epstein and former President Donald Trump, with some documents revealing Epstein claiming to have insider knowledge about Trump’s opinions in conversations with a Gates adviser.
Investigative documents related to Epstein have dominated the first year of Trump’s second administration, with various members using the document release as a key issue leading up to the 2024 presidential election. Over the past year, political dynamics have evolved, particularly as it’s become evident that Trump, once an acquaintance of Epstein, appears frequently in the investigative records.
"As we near the deadline for the Epstein Files Transparency Act, these new images generate more questions about what the Department of Justice is actually holding," stated Representative Robert Garcia, the committee’s ranking Democratic member, in a press release. "We must put an end to this White House cover-up, and the DOJ has to release the Epstein files now."
