Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick clearly wasn’t forthright about the extent of his relationship with the late Jeffrey Epstein, the child sex trafficker.
In aNew York Postpodcastinterviewin October, Lutnick claimed he visited Epstein’s home in New York City only once, prior to the latter’s 2008 conviction for soliciting a prostitute and soliciting a minor. Lutnick said that he was so put off by “that disgusting person” that he had no contact with him after that. “That’s my story,” Lutnick added, “a one-and-absolutely-done.”
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According to documents included in the Justice Department’s latest legally mandated release of Epstein files, the largest batch to date, Lutnickregularly communicatedwith “that disgusting person” for years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction. He went into business with him. He even visited Epstein’s notorious island where many crimes allegedly took place.
Even the culture-warring Republican commentator Erick Erickson, who is cynical about whether anyone in politics or media has an authentic desire for justice when it comes to Epstein’s crimes,wrotethat Lutnick “clearly lied about his relationship with Epstein, which turned out to be much deeper and lasted much longer than Lutnick said.”
The Commerce Department and the Trump White House both spent yesterday defending Lutnick by casting blame on the media instead of explaining the secretary’s dishonest statements to theNew York Post. But on Tuesday, Lutnick was left to defend himself when heappeared on Capitol Hillfor a hearing on funding for broadband. He took the moment to downplay his relationship with Epstein, saying:
Probably the total—and you’ve seen all of these documents, of these millions and millions of documents—there may be ten emails connecting me with [Epstein], probably about ten emails connecting me with him over a fourteen-year period. I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with that person, OK?
Lutnick alsoadmittedto visiting Epstein’s island for lunch while on a boat trip with his family. He said he did not interact on the island with Epstein’s longtime collaborator, the convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.
Prior to the hearing, there were already bipartisan calls for Lutnick to step down over his Epstein lies. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.)toldCNN in an interview that Lutnick has “a lot to answer for, but really, he should make life easier on the president, frankly, and just resign.”
“Lutnick’s lies about his business dealings with a convicted child sex offender . . . raise serious concerns about his judgement and ethics,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said in a statement. “Lutnick has no business being our Commerce Secretary, and he should resign immediately.”
Source: Drudge Report
