Former PM Ehud Barak seen in a new Epstein estate image released by US Congress

Former prime minister Ehud Barak appears in one of the dozens of photos that Democrats in the US Congress released from the estate of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Thursday.

An undated photo shows Barak seated at a table between billionaire Thomas Pritzker and director Woody Allen, with magician David Blaine standing to the side. Epstein, who died by suicide in federal prison after he was charged with sex trafficking of young women, can be seen standing between Barak and Allen.

Barak reportedly met with Epstein dozens of times beginning in 2013, Barak’s final year as Israel’s defense minister. The former premier has previously defended his business dealings with Epstein, saying he believed Epstein had already paid his debt to society for an earlier charge of soliciting prostitution from a minor. Blaine, Pritzker and Allen could not immediately be reached for comment.

The previously unreleased photo of Barak was one of 68 images that Democrats on the US House Oversight Committee released on Thursday, a day before the US Justice Department is required by law to release unclassified files from its investigation of the disgraced financier.

The latest batch of images includes close-ups 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; redacted identification cards of women from Russia, Morocco, Italy, Czech Republic, South Africa, Ukraine and Lithuania; and a late-night text thread about sending girls for someone identified as “j” for $1,000 each.

The 68 photos are among some 95,000 that Epstein’s estate released to the US  House Oversight Committee. Last week, oversight Democrats released 19 photos, including some featuring now-US President Donald Trump, who dismissed the images as “no big deal.” Billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates, professor and left-wing activist Noam Chomsky and former Trump aide Steve Bannon are also pictured in the latest images.

Representatives for Gates, Chomsky and Bannon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Democrats on the Oversight Committee 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.”

Democrats said they had thousands more images, “both graphic and mundane,” which they are continuing to analyze.

“Oversight Democrats will continue to release photographs and documents from the Epstein estate to provide transparency for the American people,” said California Representative Robert Garcia, top Democrat on the Oversight Committee. “As we approach the deadline for the Epstein Files Transparency Act, these new images raise more questions about what exactly the Department of Justice has in its possession. We must end this White House cover-up, 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 administration has delivered,” she said in a statement.

The US Congress voted overwhelmingly last month to release the Epstein files, two days after Trump announced his support for the move in an about-face that followed months of trying to scuttle it.