President Donald Trump was unfazed by resounding calls for one of his cabinet secretaries to resign over ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, 64, drew a torrent of criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle after the latest Epstein files dump undercut his claim that he swore off the late pedophile after an uncomfortable encounter in the 2000s.
But Trump, a longtime Epstein pal whose own name appeared thousands of times throughout the files, stood by his embattled commerce chief.
“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,” he added.
Last year, Lutnick told Pod Force One that Epstein offered him a tour of his New York home after they became neighbors in 2005. Lutnick said he and his wife cut the tour short after becoming unsettled by seeing a massage table in one of the rooms.
“My wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again,” he said. “So I was never in the room with him socially, for business, or even philanthropy. If that guy was there, I wasn’t going, because he’s gross.”
However, new documents released by the Department of Justice showed that Lutnick continued to stay in contact with Epstein—and even did business with him—well after 2005.
Records showed that Lutnick and Epstein signed onto the same business deal in 2012. Lutnick also planned a visit to Epstein’s island, Little St. James, in the same year.
“Hi Jeff,” Lutnick wrote in an email dated Dec. 19, 2012. “Does Sunday evening for dinner sound good?”
In 2017, Epstein agreed to donate $50,000 to a dinner honoring Lutnick, but privately acknowledged the shady optics of the move.
“Hope pr is ok,” Epstein wrote to one of the event’s organizers.
A spokesperson for the Commerce Department dismissed the new reporting as “nothing more than a failing attempt by the legacy media to distract from the administration’s accomplishments.”
“Secretary Lutnick had limited interactions with Mr. Epstein in the presence of his wife and has never been accused of wrongdoing,” the spokesperson said on Saturday.
Just last week, Lutnick told The New York Times, “I spent zero time with him.”
But Lutnick failed to convince lawmakers, several of whom demanded his resignation, including Robert Garcia, Ted Lieu, and Melanie Stansbury.
“Howard Lutnick lied to the American people about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein,” California Democrat Adam Schiff said in a statement. “Lutnick’s lies about his business dealings with a convicted child sex offender, raise serious concerns about his judgement and ethics. Lutnick has no business being our Commerce Secretary, and he should resign immediately.”
“He should just resign,” Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie told CNN. “He’s got a lot to answer for, but really, he should make life easier on the president, frankly, and just resign.”
The Commerce Department did not immediately return a request for comment on calls for Lutnick to resign.
