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US lawmakers are demanding that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick be fired after newly released Epstein files showed the two were in business together as recently as 2014.
Congressman Robert Garcia took to X to demand accountability, saying Lutnick “must resign or be fired.”
“It’s now clear that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has been lying about his relationship with Epstein. He said he had no interactions with Epstein after 2005, yet we now know they were in business together,” Garcia added.
Documents
made public by the US Justice Department show that Lutnick maintained business ties with the late sex offender well after Epstein’s 2008 state conviction, despite Lutnick’s public claims that he had cut ties in 2005.
According to CBS News, the records reveal that both Lutnick and Epstein signed agreements in 2012 to acquire stakes in a now-defunct company. The documents also show ongoing correspondence involving shared business interests through at least 2014, even as Lutnick maintained that his interactions with Epstein were “limited.”
Lutnick is not the only public official facing scrutiny over ties to Epstein.
In the UK, Prime Minister Keir Starmer is under mounting political pressure over his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to Washington, after Mandelson’s past links to Epstein resurfaced.
On January 30, the Justice Department released more than three million pages of documents, along with around 2,000 videos and roughly 180,000 images linked to Epstein’s federal investigations—the largest disclosure made under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
