U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick again denied having a close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the sex offender who died in prison.
Minister Lutnick appeared at a hearing of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science on the 10th and said, "I had no relationship with him."
According to the Epstein files released by the Ministry of Justice on the 30th, Lutnick is suspected of having interacted regularly with Epstein from 2005 for at least 13 years. The New York Times (NYT) said Lutnick's name appeared in more than 250 documents. In particular, a document indicated that in 2012 Lutnick planned to visit Epstein's privately owned island where most of the sex crimes took place.
This contradicts Minister Lutnick's statement in a podcast interview last year that "after meeting Epstein in 2005, I felt disgusted and never met him again." Some within the ruling Republican Party are calling for Minister Lutnick to resign.
That day, Minister Lutnick said he met Epstein three times from when Epstein started living as a neighbor in Manhattan in 2005 until Epstein died in prison in 2019. In line with suspicions raised in documents released by the Ministry of Justice, he acknowledged that after the first meeting in 2005, he met him two more times.
Minister Lutnick said, "(After first meeting in 2005) I met him six years later, and then again a year and a half after that. I have not met him since. Out of probably millions of (Epstein-related) documents, there are about 10 emails that connect me and him."
Minister Lutnick said, "Like everyone else, I looked through the millions of documents with my name, and what I found was only a document stating that I met (in 2011) in May at 5 p.m. for one hour. Not dinner or anything else—met at 5 p.m. for one hour."
Regarding the 2012 meeting, he said, "While I was on a boat for a family vacation, I once had lunch with him," then claimed his family and a nanny and another couple's family were present, and said of the reason for the meeting, "I don't remember."
Minister Lutnick claimed that what he witnessed during that meeting was "only the employees who worked for Epstein on that island."
Minister Lutnick raised his voice, saying, "There is nothing that can be called a relationship with him, nor anything that can be called an acquaintance," and "My wife and I know that I have never done anything wrong in any respect."