Another top official handpicked by President Donald Trump has been spotted in the Epstein files.
A document released by the Department of Justice in the latest files dump showed Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, appearing to invite Jeffrey Epstein to a Valentine’s Day party in 2016, nearly a decade after the shadowy financier became a convicted sex offender. Other documents provided a glimpse into their interactions.
On Feb. 1 2016, Epstein received an email from “Mehmet & Lisa Oz” that carried the subject line “Mehmet & Lisa Oz’s Valentines Celebration.” The body of the email appeared to be a link to a virtual invitation sent via the Paperless Post platform. The address for the party was Oz’s 10-bedroom oceanside mansion in Palm Beach, Florida.
Exactly a month earlier, Oz sent an email to Epstein with the straightforward subject line “Dr oz.” Oz’s email address was linked to the domain Zoco.com, likely related to his television production company, Zoco Productions LLC, which produced The Dr. Oz Show. The message contained some type of code.
In October 2014, Epstein said he could not attend a dialogue between Oz and physician-researcher Dean Ornish at the Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
Another email thread dated December 2012 indicated that Oz and his wife were among more than a hundred people invited to an event that appeared to have been hosted by Epstein.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the documents and the extent of Oz’s relationship with Epstein.
In 2019, Oz did several episodes about Epstein on his eponymous show. In one episode, he spoke to two Epstein accusers and looked bewildered as they recounted their experiences.
Oz, 65, joins Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the small club of Trump Cabinet secretaries who have been linked to Epstein.
On Tuesday, senators grilled Lutnick, 64, about documents that undercut his previous claims that he severed ties with Epstein in 2005. The embattled commerce secretary has been hounded with calls to resign, but Trump has stood by him.
“Did you, in fact, make the visit to Jeffrey Epstein’s private island?” Maryland Democrat Van Hollen asked.
“I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation. My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies,” Lutnick responded. “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.”
Kennedy, meanwhile, went dinosaur bone hunting with Epstein and his girlfriend-slash-accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, according to an email thread released by the Justice Department.
Maxwell previously confirmed the trip in an interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. Kennedy, 72, did not return an earlier request for comment from the Daily Beast.
