Democrats Demand Public Hearing With Lutnick on Epstein Friendship Following Closed-Door Testimony

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is facing calls from Democrats to answer questions in public about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Mr. Lutnick had denied ever spending time with Epstein beyond one brief interaction, though the release of the Epstein files disclosed a closer relationship than he had previously let on. Mr. Lutnick and Epstein were neighbors in Manhattan for several years. The two met on multiple occasions after Epstein’s 2008 guilty plea on charges of solicitation of a minor in Florida, even though Mr. Lutnick had previously denied ever seeing the man after 2005. The files released by the Justice Department earlier this year, however, disclosed that the two men had lunch with Mr. Lutnick’s family on Epstein’s island years later, and that Mr. Lutnick had been in business with Epstein beginning in 2014. Their last correspondence was in 2018, one year before Epstein’s death. Today’s transcribed interview is part of the ongoing cover-up because the American people deserve to see the video of what’s taking place in there. They deserve to see the sweat on the secretary’s brow as he struggles to answer basic questions about his lies,” Congressman James Walkinshaw, a Democrat on the Oversight Committee, told reporters after Mr. Lutnick was questioned by lawmakers behind closed doors. “Well, now we know why that interview was not videotaped. If Donald Trump had seen the video … he would have fired Howard Lutnick,” Congressman Ro Khanna, another Democrat, said. Several individuals who have answered questions about Epstein in private for the Oversight Committee, including President Clinton and the former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, had their interviews taped and later made public. “It was just contortions and lies and no acknowledgment that he misled the American public,” Mr. Khanna said. “If you saw the exchanges that my colleagues had with him, you would see he made a farce of the English language.”“He said that he would never socially or professionally be involved or be in a room with Epstein again. Then, in 2012, he took his family and his staff to Jeffrey Epstein’s island,” Congresswoman Yassmin Ansari said after the interview. Ms. Ansari said that Mr. Lutnick claimed all of his meetings and correspondence with Epstein were “meaningless and inconsequential.”The Republican chairman of the committee, Congressman James Comer, said before the interview that it would be up to the American people to judge whether or not Mr. Lutnick is credible. Mr. Comer noted that Mr. Lutnick was not “100 percent” truthful about his interactions with Epstein. The chairman says that a transcript of the interview will be made public. The searchable Epstein files library on the Justice Department’s website shows Mr. Lutnick was mentioned nearly 250 times across emails, text messages, and other correspondence. One email exchange from 2012 shows that Epstein’s assistant, Lesley Groff, was corresponding with Mr. Lutnick’s assistant, Matthew Gilbert. In those emails, Mr. Gilbert passed along cell phone numbers belonging to both Mr. Lutnick and his wife. Later, Mr. Lutnick emailed Ms. Groff directly, informing her that he, his family, and another couple they were with would be happy to join Epstein on his island for lunch.

Democrats Demand Public Hearing With Lutnick on Epstein Friendship Following Closed-Door Testimony

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