Lutnick sought to clean up Epstein revelations in closed testimony to House committee
Source: Politico
05/13/2026 08:26 PM EDT
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in closed-door testimony to Congress refuted accusations that he maintained a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein years after he claimed he had cut ties.
Lutnick, who has faced harsh criticism for his ties with the convicted sex offender as part of a global reckoning sparked by the release of long-sealed documents, told the House Oversight Committee that his conflicting statements weren’t intentional, according to a transcript released Wednesday.
The commerce secretary, who previously was CEO of financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald, had said in a podcast interview that he cut ties with Epstein in 2005 — a fact contradicted in the documents released by the Justice Department under a law passed by Congress. “I was describing 20 years later a conversation I had with my wife. It was informal. It wasn’t trying to be literal,” Lutnick said of his comments on the New York Post podcast last year.
Documents within the files released by the Justice Department showed that Lutnick and his family visited the sex offender’s island in 2012 — about four years after Epstein’s conviction in Florida on charges that included soliciting prostitution from a minor. That contradicted his podcast interview in which he said he had known for years that Epstein was a “disgusting person” and he would “never be in the room” under any circumstances.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/13/lutnick-epstein-closed-testimony-00920058
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