Several Democrats on the House Oversight Committee alleged that Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick lied during a Wednesday deposition about his relationship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in an effort to protect the Trump administration.
Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) said that, moving forward, he wants depositions relating to Epstein to be on camera so “the American people get to see them.” He also called on Lutnick to resign.
“He was evasive, nervous, he was dishonest. He would not admit to lying, which he clearly did in the podcasts,” Subramanyam said, referring to interviews he gave last year.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) expressed the same sentiment during a news conference after the closed-door hearing.
“Well, now we know why that interview was not videotaped,” Khanna said. “If Donald Trump had seen the video transcript, he would have fired Howard Lutnick. It was really embarrassing.”
The commerce secretary has been accused of repeatedly changing his account of and lying about his yearslong ties to the late sex offender.
Khanna said Lutnick walked back an earlier statement that Epstein had blackmailed some federal prosecutors for a lighter sentence after he was convicted on state charges in Florida in 2008, saying he had no basis for that claim.
“I think he’s covering up for the administration,” he said. “Someone obviously got to him from the administration. In fact, he said he talked to people in the administration and that’s why he’s changed his tune.”
AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana
A spokesperson for Lutnick told Forbes in 2024 that he “never had any association with Mr. Epstein.”
But in a podcast interview last fall, Lutnick conceded that he and his wife had visited the financier’s neighboring New York City home in 2005. He claimed that they’d decided not to associate with Epstein after seeing a massage table and candles there.
That visit took place three years before Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor for prostitution. However, emails released by the Justice Department show that Lutnick and Epstein continued to communicate sporadically in the years after Epstein’s conviction. In February, Lutnick admitted to having traveled to Epstein’s private island with his wife and kids in 2012.
“I did not have a relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with that person,” Lutnick told congressional leaders, while acknowledging that he had visited Epstein’s island.
“It’s important to note, he could remember nothing about the visit to the island,” Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) said Wednesday. “He couldn’t remember why he was there. He couldn’t remember what he saw. Apparently, he could remember in great detail the 2005 visit to the townhouse and the massage tables that were there. Now, 2005 is seven years before 2012, so his memory was sharp with respect to 2005 but dull with respect to 2012 and the visit to the island.”
A bipartisan group of lawmakers challenged Lutnick’s 2012 visit to Epstein’s island, questioning why he’d knowingly bring his children anywhere near a convicted pedophile.
“You had interactions with Epstein over 13 years, including long after he was convicted of soliciting the prostitution of a minor,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told Lutnick in February amid bipartisan calls for his resignation. “That does call into question your credibility and fitness for the job.”