Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was left stammering and insisted he did not have a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein when confronted over his visit to the pedophile’s private island.
The top Trump official is under fire for his relationship with the late convicted sex offender after he suggested he had cut off contact with Epstein in 2005, but the release of files indicated otherwise.
Lutnick was appearing before a Senate subcommittee on Tuesday when Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen cornered him on his relationship with the pedophile.
“Why do the Epstein files show you coordinating a meeting and planning a visit with Jeffrey Epstein on his private island in December of 2012?” Van Hollen asked.
“I met Jeffrey Epstein when he moved—when I moved to a house next door to him in New York. I met him then,” Lutnick said. “Over the next fourteen years, I met him two other times that I can recall. Two times. And that is none for six years.”
Lutnick insisted after his initial 2005 encounter, he met Epstein once six years later and then one more time after that, but then “never again.”
“Probably the total, and you’ve seen all of these documents, of these millions and millions of documents, there may be ten emails connecting me with him, probably about ten emails connecting me with him over a 14-year period,” Lutnick said waving his hands.
“I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with that person. Okay?” he declared.
But Van Hollen was not letting up after the emails showed Lutnick and his family coordinated having lunch with Epstein long after Lutnick suggested they cut off ties.
“Did you, in fact, make the visit to Jeffrey Epstein’s private island?” Van Hollen asked.
“I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation,” Lutnick said slowly. “My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies.”
He added that another couple with their children were also with them for the lunch.
“And we had lunch on the island. That is true, for an hour, and then we left with all of my children, and my nannies, and my wife, all together. We were on family vacation,” Lutnick said. “We were not apart, to suggest there was anything untoward about that in 2012. I don’t recall why we did it, but we did.”
Van Hollen emphasized there was no indication Lutnick had engaged in any wrongdoing with Epstein but that he misled the country and Congress by suggesting he had cut off contact.
“When you visited the private island, did you see anything inappropriate during that visit?” the senator asked.
“The only thing I saw with my wife and my children and the other couple and their children was staff who worked for Mr. Epstein on that island,” Lutnick said.
The Maryland lawmaker pointed out that the family’s island visit took place after Epstein was convicted.
“You made very big point of saying you sensed this was a bad person in 2005 and then of course in 2008 he was convicted of soliciting prostitution of a minor, and yet you went and had this trip and other interactions,” Van Hollen noted.
The senator then asked Lutnick whether he had dinner with Epstein at Epstein’s New York home in 2011.
“No,” Lutnick said.
He said he did not know what the senator was referring to about a meal that also included Woody Allen and his wife at Epstein’s home.
“I looked through the millions of documents for my name just like everybody else,” Lutnick admitted. “What I found was there was a document that says that I had a meeting with him in May I think for an hour at five o’clock, not dinner or otherwise for an hour at five o’clock.”
The senator also asked about a reference in the files that the convicted sex offender was interested in meeting Lutnick’s nanny, but the commerce secretary claimed he was not aware of any meeting.
“No, I saw that. I had no idea what that was about,” Lutnick said. “It had nothing to do with me as far as I know.”
Lutnick was pressed to share his own records that relate to Epstein. He said he would talk about it but hadn’t thought about it.
“I have nothing to hide, absolutely nothing,” he insisted.
However, the questions about Epstein did not stop there. Senator Chris Coons said it troubled him that Lutnick took his family for lunch on Epstein’s island and had appointments with him.
“Please disclose everything. Put this to rest because this is an issue of grave concern to my constituents. President Trump ran on releasing the Epstein files,” Coons said.
“You said casually, ‘Well, I looked at my name and how it appeared as does everyone.’ No, everyone isn’t worried about their name being in the Epstein files,” the Delaware senator scolded.
Lutnick repeated his claim that he only met Epstein two other times after the 2005 encounter.
The accusations that the top Trump official misled the American public come after his emails appeared multiple times in the latest batch of files released last month, after he had tried to distance himself from his former next-door neighbor.
In October, Lutnick shared in an interview with the Pod Force One podcast that Epstein showed him and his wife, Allison, the infamous “massage room” at his townhouse back in 2005 after inviting them over for coffee.
After that, Lutnick said they quickly left and agreed to never be in a room with him again.
“If that guy was there, I wasn’t going because he’s gross,” Lutnick claimed in the interview.
Senator Jeff Merkley on Tuesday also rattled off a list of instances where the commerce secretary showed up in the Epstein files. He noted eight examples and encouraged Lutnick to correct the record.
While some lawmakers encouraged Lutnick to simply come clean, he is facing bipartisan calls for his resignation.
However, the president, who is also facing his own mounting questions about his relationship with Epstein, is standing by Lutnick this week.
“President Trump has assembled the best and most transformative cabinet in modern history,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement, without directly addressing the criticism of Lutnick.
“The entire Trump administration, including Secretary Lutnick and the Department of Commerce, remains focused on delivering for the American people,” Desai added.
