Rep.Thomas Massie(R-KY) told CNN anchor and senior White House correspondentKaitlan Collinsabout new revelations he discovered following Trump Secretary of CommerceHoward Lutnick’sgrilling over his visit toJeffrey Epstein’sprivate island.

The newest batchof Epstein documentsappear to contradict Lutnick’s previous statements that he shunned Epstein aftera creepy 2005 encounterwhen they were neighbors.

Secretary Lutnickwas grilled at a hearingTuesday over the discrepancy and his visit to the private island with his wife and children in 2012 — years after Epstein’s conviction on sex crimes.

On Tuesday night’seditionof CNN’sThe Source with Kaitlan Collins, Collins asked Massie if he’d found out anything new after he went back to the Justice Department to view unredacted files.

Massie revealed that Lutnick and Epstein exchanged phone numbers — and arrangements for phone calls had been documented:

KAITLAN COLLINS: I believe you went back to the Justice Department today. If you did, what more can you tell us about what you saw?

REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): Well, I saw that Lutnick shared his phone number with Epstein, and that their assistants were setting up phone calls between them. So, there is at least that other connection.

I didn’t find any new names today. I didn’t have a lot of time to spend there. But the main — by the way, it’s a room with four computers, and it’s busy all the time. There’s always at least four congressmen in there. And the main complaint that I hear, as we search through these files, is that when you unredact some of the files, you encounter more redactions. And then when we ask the DOJ, Why are these files redacted? Why can’t we remove the redactions? The DOJ says, Well, that’s the form in which we received the files.

Now, here’s the problem with that, Kaitlan. The legislation thatRo Khannaand I wrote, directs the Attorney General to produce the documents, but they have to give all the documents that are in the possession, not of the DOJ, but also of the FBI and also of the U.S. attorneys.

So, what’s happened, it seems, is that the U.S. attorneys and/or the FBI have redacted documents, given them to the DOJ, and then the DOJ hasn’t done their diligence to go get the original documents.

Source: Drudge Report