WASHINGTON (AP) — Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, in an interview with House lawmakers, backed away from a previous claim that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein had blackmailed people.
Lutnick agreed to sit for an interview with the House Oversight Committee last week after the release of case files on Epstein contradicted his claim on a podcast last year that he had been determined to “never be in a room again” with Epstein after a 2005 tour
of Epstein’s home that disturbed Lutnick and his wife.
The House Oversight Committee released the transcript of the interview Wednesday, as well as a transcript of an interview with Tedd Waitt, a former boyfriend of Epstein confidant Ghislaine Maxwell.
Lutnick, who for years was neighbors with Epstein in New York City, had claimed in that podcast interview that Epstein engaged in blackmail. But under scrutiny from lawmakers, Lutnick said he was only “speculating.”
“I had no personal information. I was just speculating for a podcast,” Lutnick told lawmakers, adding that his two other personal interactions with Epstein years later were “meaningless and inconsequential.”
Lutnick is the highest-ranked current administration official, besides President Donald Trump, to be named in the Epstein case files. The Republican president has consistently denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and has said he ended their relationship years ago.
Lutnick repeatedly downplayed his previous interactions with Epstein. He said that after Epstein, who died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, showed a massage table and made a sexual innuendo during a tour of his townhouse in 2005, Lutnick and his wife decided he would “just avoid him.”
Yet Lutnick, who was previously the head of brokerage and investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald, had a pair of interactions and exchanged several emails with Epstein over the years.
They also both invested in the same business venture in 2013, according to the Epstein case files. Lutnick told lawmakers that he was unaware that Epstein was also an investor until the case files were released months ago.
The commerce secretary also described his two other meetings with Epstein. During a family vacation in the Caribbean, Epstein's staff invited them to have lunch on his private island. Describing the 2012 visit, he told the committee: “We sat outside, had lunch. It was boring. We left.”
Lutnick also said he made a brief visit to Epstein's home in 2011 to discuss scaffolding that would be installed at Epstein's townhouse. Lutnick called that meeting “meaningless and inconsequential.”
Democrats pressed Lutnick to answer for his decision to meet up with Epstein after initially determining that he would avoid him. Lutnick responded that he couldn't remember why his family made the visit to Epstein's island.
As they emerged from the interview last week, Democrats criticized Lutnick as evasive and dishonest. Several called on him to resign.
“If a Cabinet Secretary lies to the American public, they should no longer serve in that position. Mr. Lutnick should resign or be fired,” Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said on social media shortly after Lutnick's interview.
The White House has stood behind Lutnick, who for years has been a part of Trump's circle.
Lawmakers also last month interviewed Waitt, the cofounder of Gateway computers who dated Maxwell in the early 2000s. Maxwell, who is serving a lengthy prison sentence for helping Epstein traffic girls, had also dated Epstein and was his longtime confidant.
Waitt told lawmakers that he was unaware at the time that either Epstein or Maxwell was committing sexual abuse. He also described meeting Epstein only a handful of times.
“Each of those were very brief and unintentional,” he said, adding that he had never visited Epstein's home, flown on his planes or visited his private island.
Waitt said he found Epstein “somewhat arrogant” and added that he was “off-putting.”
