Lutnick said his earlier podcast blackmail claim was speculation
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told House Oversight Committee lawmakers that his earlier comments about Jeffrey Epstein “blackmail” were not based on personal knowledge, and he backed away from the wording after case files released in the investigation contradicted his account. In the committee interview transcript released Wednesday, Lutnick said he had been “speculating” for a podcast and told lawmakers he had “no personal information.” He also told the committee that two other personal interactions with Epstein over the years were “meaningless and inconsequential.”
The House Oversight Committee released the transcript after Lutnick agreed to be interviewed last week, following the public release of case files that challenged his prior description of an episode he said had led him to avoid Epstein. Lawmakers pressed him on why he later continued to have contact with Epstein even after describing a 2005 tour of Epstein’s home that he said disturbed him and his wife.
Lutnick had previously told listeners that after that 2005 tour, he was determined to “never be in a room again” with Epstein. In the committee interview, he said he “speculat[ed]” for the podcast when he used the “blackmail” characterization, saying he did not have personal information that would support such a claim. “I had no personal information. I was just speculating for a podcast,” he told lawmakers.
He also sought to minimize later interactions described in the case files. Lutnick told the committee that after the 2005 visit, he and his wife decided to “just avoid him,” and he described an exchange in which Epstein showed a massage table and made a sexual innuendo during the townhouse tour. In response to questions about later meetings, he described his interactions as incidental and said he could not remember why his family made an additional visit with Epstein’s staff on Epstein’s private island.
Lutnick described later meetings as incidental
According to the committee transcript, Lutnick said that during a family vacation in the Caribbean, Epstein’s staff invited him and his family to have lunch on Epstein’s private island and that “We sat outside, had lunch. It was boring. We left.” The commerce secretary also described a separate brief visit to Epstein’s home in 2011 in connection with scaffolding that would be installed at Epstein’s townhouse, calling the meeting “meaningless and inconsequential.”
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said those responses did not adequately explain why he met with Epstein after initially deciding to avoid him. As they emerged from the interview last week, Democrats criticized Lutnick as evasive and dishonest and called for him to resign. Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the committee, said on social media shortly after Lutnick’s interview: “If a Cabinet Secretary lies to the American public, they should no longer serve in that position. Mr. Lutnick should resign or be fired.”
Case files say Lutnick invested with Epstein
The case files also described a level of business and correspondence that Lutnick downplayed. Lutnick told lawmakers that he and Epstein both invested in the same venture in 2013, according to the case files, but said he was unaware that Epstein was also an investor until the files were released months later. He had previously been the head of brokerage and investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald and lived as a neighbor of Epstein in New York City for years, according to the transcript.
Lutnick is the highest-ranked current administration official besides President Donald Trump named in the Epstein case files, according to the Associated Press report. The White House has stood behind Lutnick, who has for years been part of Trump’s circle, and Trump has repeatedly denied knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and said the relationship ended years ago.
Lawmakers also interviewed Tedd Waitt
In separate testimony released with the Lutnick transcript, lawmakers interviewed Tedd Waitt, a former boyfriend of Ghislaine Maxwell and a cofounder of Gateway computers. Waitt told lawmakers he was unaware at the time that either Epstein or Maxwell was committing sexual abuse and said he met Epstein only a handful of times. “Each of those were very brief and unintentional,” Waitt said, adding that he had never visited Epstein’s home, flown on Epstein’s planes or visited Epstein’s private island.
Maxwell is serving a lengthy prison sentence for helping Epstein traffic girls, and she also had a relationship with Epstein as well as a longstanding association with him, according to the Associated Press report.
Sources told by the Associated Press that the committee interviews are part of its ongoing review of material associated with the Epstein case files.