Trump administration Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Tuesday admitted he and his family had lunch on the personal island of infamous intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein years earlier.
“I did have lunch with him, as I used to be on a ship going throughout on a family vacation” in 2012, Lutnick stated in testimony earlier than the Senate Appropriations Committee.
“My spouse was with me, as had been my 4 youngsters and nannies,” he stated. “I had one other couple with — they had been there as properly, with their youngsters.”
“And we had lunch on the island, that’s true, for an hour,” he stated.
“And we left with all of my youngsters, with my nannies and my spouse, all collectively. We had been on family vacation,” he stated.
The secretary’s admission got here as he faces bipartisan calls to resign following the discharge of information displaying that his enterprise and private relationship with Epstein was extra intensive than beforehand recognized.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick testifies during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Associated Businesses listening to on February 10, 2026 in Washington, DC. Lutnick is going through bipartisan requires his resignation after revelations that got here to mild within the newest launch of Epstein recordsdata.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Photos Information | Getty Photos
Lutnick beforehand stated that he lower off contact with Epstein after 2005 — years earlier than Epstein pleaded responsible in 2008 to a state-level cost of soliciting a minor for prostitution, which required him to register as a intercourse offender.
However analyses of the most recent batch of Epstein recordsdata launched by the Division of Justice present Lutnick and Epstein had been in communication years later.
In December 2012, Epstein invited Lutnick to lunch at his personal island within the Caribbean, the paperwork confirmed. The 2 males additionally had enterprise dealings as not too long ago as 2014, CBS Information reported.
Epstein died by suicide in jail in 2019 whereas going through federal intercourse trafficking prices.
In his testimony Tuesday morning earlier than the Appropriations panel’s subcommittee on commerce, justice, science and associated businesses, Lutnick insisted that he “barely had something to do with that particular person.”
“I am glad to be right here to make it clear that I met Jeffrey Epstein when he moved, once I moved to a home subsequent door to him in New York,” the Cupboard secretary testified.
“Over the following 14 years, I met him two different occasions that I can recall, two occasions,” he stated. “So six years later, I met him, after which a 12 months and a half after that, I met him, and by no means once more.”
“In all probability the whole — and you have seen all of those paperwork, of those thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of paperwork — there could also be 10 emails connecting me with him … Over a 14 12 months interval.”
“I didn’t have any relationship with him,” Lutnick stated.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., the subcommittee’s rating member, replied, “There’s not a sign that you simply your self engaged in any wrongdoing with Jeffrey Epstein. It is the truth that you … misled the nation and the Congress primarily based in your earlier statements suggesting that you simply lower off all contact, when, the truth is, you had not.”
Requested by Van Hollen if he noticed something inappropriate during his go to to the island, Lutnick stated that he didn’t.
“The one factor I noticed with my spouse and my youngsters and the opposite couple and their youngsters was employees who labored for Mr. Epstein on that island,” he testified.
Van Hollen requested if Lutnick would decide to sharing with Congress his personal information referring to Epstein so as to “be sure that the file is full.”
“I’ll absolutely speak about that. Hadn’t considered that,” Lutnick stated, including, “I’ve nothing to cover. Completely nothing.”
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