Howard Lutnick, Commerce Secretary, claimed his only 2005 meeting with Jeffrey Epstein ended after finding his behavior repulsive, but leaked files reveal 13 years of contact—including a 2012 family trip to Epstein Island and emails suggesting Epstein sought to meet a nanny. Despite Senate admissions, Lutnick faced no consequences, contrasting sharply with the UK’s forced resignations of Peter Mandelson and Morgan McSweeney over similar ties, exposing a double standard in accountability for powerful figures. [Automatically generated summary]
It is not exactly rare to watch government officials or politicians of all types deceive or shade the truth or mislead in various ways, but rarely do we have a case of a high-level government official so blatantly and brazenly looking at people in the face and lying about not an ancillary matter, but a highly consequential one, as we do with the billionaire commerce secretary, Howard Luttnick.
When the Jeffrey Epstein scandal first emerged, Howard Luttnick was an obvious target of questioning because he lived literally next door to Jeffrey Epstein for many years in Manhattan.
It was Billionaires Row.
Billionaires occupied these large mansions in the E70s and in New York City.
Howard Luttnick lived in one.
Jeffrey Epstein lived in the other.
They shared a wall between them.
And obviously the question that was presented to Howard Luttnick for many years was, how well did you know Jeffrey Epstein?
What was your relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, given that you lived right next door to him?
And the answer was always a bit evasive and vague because there wasn't a lot of focus yet on Jeffrey Epstein and the disclosure of the Epstein file.
So he felt no real need to answer.
And obviously, it was a likely scenario that Howard Luttnick would have something to do with Jeffrey Epstein.
The world of billionaires in general in New York City is quite small.
They generally know each other and interact with one another.
That's true, particularly for Jewish billionaires, who especially for people who raise money for Jewish causes or for pro-Israel causes, both of which is true for Howard Luttnick and for Jeffrey Epstein.
It made it even more likely that they would certainly have had some kind of an interaction, some kind of a relationship between them, one another, given that they live next door.
Last year, as the pressure began to really build for the release of the Epstein files, this was October of 2025.
So well into the scandal over the Trump administration's, for a lot of people, inexplicable refusal to release these documents after so many high-level MAGA leaders like JD Vance and Pam Bondi and Dan Vangino and Kash Patel and Donald Trump Jr. had banged on the table for four years during the Biden administration accusing the Biden administration of covering up a massive predatory pedophile ring by refusing to release these documents for Trump to get into office.
And for essentially to do the same, obviously it was going to create a kind of stent of a cover-up, which is what happened.
And in the midst of that cover-up, Howard Luttnick went to be interviewed by Miranda Devine, who is a very good reporter at the New York Post.
And she asked him about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
And the answer he provided was not ambiguous, not evasive.
It was an extremely detailed, clear, assertive, definitive account of how he once met Jeffrey Epstein back in 2005.
So 20 years earlier.
And both he and his wife were so disgusted by entering Epstein's house and by comments that Epstein made by his general compartment that they essentially fled the house, ran out, said they both found him so disgusting and refused to have anything to do with him again.
Here is what the commerce secretary said during that interview.
Do you know him?
All right.
So we are in number 11 and he lives in number nine.
So we renovate, we buy our house and our house is pigeons and mice.
Okay, that's it.
It was derelict.
So we build, we rebuild our house.
We move in in 2005.
Okay.
Jeffrey Epstein is arrested in like Kawai, I think.
So knock on the door.
His assistant on like a Saturday says, Mr. Epstein, your neighbor would like to invite you over for coffee.
So my wife and I.
Now, note, this whole story is set up with the explicit caveat that when they first came into contract with Jeffrey Epstein, it was 2005, and he hadn't yet even been arrested in that first instance in Florida, for which he eventually pled guilty on a on two counts, one of which was soliciting a minor for prosecution.
So he goes out of his way to lay this whole foundation for the story with bats and mice and all sorts of other irrelevant but colorful details so that you're focused on the fact that this was before anybody could have known, at least from any arrest records or prosecution records, that there was anything untoward about Jeffrey Epstein.
Go next door.
You know, we walk the seven steps right to the next house for coffee.
We share a wall.
Right.
Right.
So it's New York City.
So he invites us in.
We have coffee in this, and he says, do you want a tour?
I said, great.
Interesting.
He's got a really big house.
Every room you went into.
He's got, he's got it.
Well, I'll tell you.
So his house is like super big, really wide.
And so he gives me a tour in the living room, big living room.
And then across from it is double doors.
I assume it's the dining room.
Yeah.
And he opens the door and there's a massage table in the middle of the room and candles all.
I really like Miranda's Devine, but I have to say the noises she's making as he details what Jeffrey Epstein's house is like.
I don't know if she just didn't know what to say, but they almost come off as like inappropriately excited.
Like there was a massage table.
He opened this door and there was like, ooh.
I don't think she intended that way, but around stuff.
So I ask very insightful, cutting questions.
I say to him, massage table in the middle of your house?
How often do you have a massage?
And he says, every day.
And then he like gets like weirdly close to me.
And he says, and the right kind of massage.
Now, my wife is standing here.
So she looks at me and I look at her.
And we say, I'm sorry.
We have to go.
And we left.
And in the six or eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house, my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again.
So I was never in the room with him socially, for business, or even philanthropy.
If that guy was there, I wasn't going because he's gross.
That's a very self-flattering story, but it's also a very detailed one, like a very orchestrated one.
He really takes you into that scene.
He tells you what he saw that repulsed him so much.
And they basically fled the house.
And at the end, they said, I was, I was never in another room with him again.
If I saw him anywhere, I would run away in the opposite direction.
This was 2005, the very last time Howard Luttnick ever met with, talked to, was in the same room with Jeffrey Epstein because of how repulsive he found him way back in 2005 before he had even been arrested.
So that was, you know, you'd listen to that and you're like, wow, he must have really not just an intuitive understanding of other people to know in such a short time that Jeffrey Epstein was that repulsive, but a very high ethical and moral code that once he detects that somebody is just a little bit disgusting or inappropriate, that's it.
Luttnick's Lying Lapse00:13:17
For Howard Luttnick, no more contact.
The problem with that was so easily anticipated at the time that he told this whole tale, this false tale, that I'm honestly astounded that he didn't understand that very shortly thereafter, he would be proven to be a complete liar.
Because the imminence of the release of the Epstein files was obviously apparent to everybody.
There was massive melting pressure.
Congress was voting to release the Epstein files.
It was only a matter of time.
And within the Epstein files was a small mountain of evidence proving that Howard Luttnick had not just ancillary, but significant relationships and meetings with Jeffrey Epstein well after 2005.
In fact, well after 2008, when he pled guilty to those crimes involving a minor.
Here is just one of the emails that has been released involving Howard Luttnick and Jeffrey Epstein.
And it's Howard Luttnick writing to Jeffrey Epstein or to his assistant, the past Jeffrey Epstein.
And he says this, this is 2012.
So four years after his Epstein's conviction, seven years after Howard Luttnick said definitively just a few months ago that it was the last time he ever saw Jeffrey Epstein again, he wrote this email to Jeffrey Epstein.
Hi, Jeff.
We are landing in St. Thomas early Saturday afternoon and are planning to head over to St. Bart's, Aguila on Monday at some point.
Where are you located?
What is the exact location for my captain?
Does Sunday evening sound good?
I have another couple, Michael and Mary Lehman, with me on board.
And each of us has four children, two 16s, two 14s, 13, 12, 11, and a seven-year-old.
And then Jeffrey Epstein writes back and says, come on Saturday or Sunday for lunch, little St. James on the map behind the Christmas Cove.
And then FYI, I will all let you know what he says.
And so that was out of nowhere.
Howard Luttnick to Jeffrey Epstein, hey, we're going to be in the vicinity.
We'd love to swing by your little private island, Epstein Island.
Can you give us directions and tell us what a good time is?
And Jeffrey Epstein says, sure, here are the directions.
And let's make plans to swing by.
Now, yesterday, Howard Luttnick appeared before the Senate committee investigating the Epstein files and the relationships of various high-level officials to Jeffrey Epstein.
And Howard Luttnick was asked about whether or not he actually went through with that meeting with Jeffrey Epstein seven years after he had said just a few months ago, he immediately decided he would never have anything to do with Jeffrey Epstein again.
And here's what Howard said.
I think you understand the root of concern here.
It's the way you described very emphatically your first encounter with him in his apartment, said you were disgusted, would never have any contact with him again.
Did you, in fact, make the visit to Jeffrey Epstein's private island?
I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation.
So Howard Luttnick not only asked to come by Jeffrey Epstein's private island in 2012, in fact, he went to Jeffrey Epstein's private island.
Do you think there's any possibility whatsoever, remote possibility, that four months ago, three months ago, when he made up that whole tale, so detailed about how in 2005 he concluded he was so disgusting he could never have anything to do with him again that he just didn't remember asking Jeffrey Epstein for an invitation to the island and then going to Jeffrey Epstein's island, the private island that has been at the source of so many news stories over the last five years.
You think Howard Luttnick forgot that he was on Epstein Island until these documents came out?
So of course he has to admit it and here's what he says.
My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies.
I had another couple with they were there as well with their children and we had lunch on the island.
That is true for an hour and we left with all of my children, with my nannies and my wife all together.
We were on family vacation.
We were not apart.
Now, I really, I have to say, I love so much.
I've listened to this like three times just because of how entertaining I find it.
He emphasized as though like it's exonerating.
Oh, don't worry.
Yes, we went to the island.
I went to the private island, even though I lied and said I didn't.
But when I left, I didn't leave any of my young children with Jeffrey Epstein.
And not only did I take all my children, I also took all my nannies.
I didn't leave my nannies with him and I didn't leave my young children with him.
Oh, congratulations, Howard Luttnick, for not like selling off your young children to Jeffrey Epstein to just putting them in the hands of Jeffrey Epstein to stay on his private island when you and your the rest of your family leave her.
Congratulations for not passing around your nannies.
Although there's some emails that suggest maybe that congratulations is premature.
I mean, this is this, I think this comes from being a billionaire and just having people never challenge you, never pointing out that what you're saying is false, getting away with everything.
I mean, the contrast between what he said yesterday and what's in these emails on the one hand and what he told Miranda Devine in that initial interview, which again wasn't seven years ago, it was three months ago, could not be any starker.
I mean, lying that brazen, blatant, and indisputable is rare to find, even among the political class.
And yet he's so shameless about it.
It's like, oh, as long as it was just an hour and as long as I didn't leave any of my kids in his hands and I took my nannies when I left, what's the problem?
Here's the rest of this.
To suggest there was anything untoward about that in 2012, I don't recall why we did it, but Mr. Secretary, again, as I said, there's.
Now, you know, he's obviously trying to say, look, I didn't have sex with young girls when I was on the island.
Nobody had claimed that he did.
The issue is that he blatantly lied.
Now, you can decide, look, I don't really care if government officials blatantly lie about consequential matters like Epstein.
And it seems like there's a lot of people who have taken that position.
Oh, who cares if government officials just brazenly odd to the public?
Who cares?
Stock market's doing well.
The border's closed.
Like, why are we bothering ourselves with this?
But the fact that he blatantly lied is something that certainly ought to be reported and demonstrated.
And I think it ought to matter.
Now, it's by far not the only instance where Howard Luttnick had direct contact and close social contact with Jeffrey Epstein.
Well, well, after not just 2005, when he said he cut off all contact forever, but also 2008 when Jeffrey Epstein was convicted.
Here's a story in the New York Times about the files.
The files detail Epstein's dealings with Commerce Secretary Howard Luttnick.
Mr. Luttnick had claimed to have distanced himself from Jeffrey Epstein even before the disgraced financier was convicted of a sex crime in Florida.
However, quote, Howard Luttnick, President Trump's billionaire commerce secretary, interacted with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein regularly over at least 13 years while they lived next door to one another on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
Records released by the G.O.J. show.
They invested in the same privately held company together, dealt with one another on neighborhood and philanthropic issues, and appear to have socialized in New York and the Caribbean, the records show.
Mr. Epstein at one point sought to meet Mr. Luttnick's nanny.
The records directly contradict Mr. Luttnick's assertion on a podcast last year that he had been so disgusted by Mr. Epstein during a 2005 visit that to the townhouse that Mr. Luttnick had never set a foot in a room with Mr. Epstein again.
Clearly, that's why Howard Luttnick went out of his way to say, I didn't leave any of my nannies on the island.
I actually let them get on my boat and come with me, because there were subsequent emails after that where Jeffrey Epstein was trying to meet at least one of Howard Luttnick's nannies.
Now, it could be innocent, although I can't think of an innocent explanation given that Jeffrey Epstein didn't have kids, so there was no need for attending.
But in any event, he clearly blatantly lied about everything that happened here.
Now, Mike Johnson, the speaker of the house, was asked about this yesterday.
And they said, hey, are you at all like concerned that Howard Luttnick seems to have blatantly lied about everything regarding Jeffrey Epstein?
And here's what Mike Johnson had to say.
Before Howard Luttnick had said that he had cut off ties with Jeffrey Epstein in 2005, the documents that came out contradict that.
Democrats and Thomas Massey said he should resign.
Do you think that Howard Luttnick should resign?
Of course not.
It's absurd.
Howard Luttnick is a great commerce secretary.
He's done an extraordinary job for the country.
It's absurd.
Of course not.
Why would anyone think he ought to resign just because he looked in the public's face and told this massively orchestrated, detailed, fabricated story, all of which was a complete lie?
Here's the rest of the very ethical Speaker of the House explaining his view.
Thomas Massey should stop being taught.
Do you have any concerns about London?
Thomas Massey's fault.
Thomas Massey should start stop grandstanding, stop trying to get the truth to the public.
I don't know anything about that.
I know Howard as an individual and I trust his word on it.
I mean, I don't know the timing and all that.
I'm not sure.
You have to ask others.
So when they started saying, look, we know you love Howard Luttnick.
You think he's a great guy.
But like, what about that whole thing about lying and how Mike Johnson was like, look, I'm not familiar with that.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
I don't know the timeline.
I haven't studied it.
It's like everybody who watched this immediately sees you don't have to study anything.
Like just playing dumb.
Oh, I haven't.
I don't know about this.
I know Howard.
And I know Howard is a great person.
And that's all I need to know.
I trust his word.
Which word?
The one where he admitted yesterday he went to the island or the one from three months ago where he swore he never had anything to do with Jeffrey Epstein again after 2005.
What's so interesting, I think, is that there are other countries where this kind of lying is resulting in the immediate destruction of some people's careers in politics, including at the highest level.
Here is, for example, The Guardian headlined how the British scandal has shaken the British government to its core.
Anger at former U.S. Ambassador Peter Mandelson, Peter Mandelson's relations with the child sex offender threatens to topple the prime minister.
Peter Mandelson has been one of the most powerful people in the British government for decades, going back to Tony Blair, has fallen several times for scandal, but Keir Starmer, Sir Keir Starmer, the labor prime minister, decided that didn't bother him.
He was going to appoint Jeffrey Epstein to be the U.S. ambassador, the U.K. ambassador to the U.S.
The Trump administration didn't want Mandelson, but Keir Starmer insisted.
And at the time, everybody knew that Peter Mandelson had a very close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Keir Starmer decided to ignore that, appoint him anyway.
And then all these emails came out showing just how deep and extensive and affectionate the friendship was between Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein.
And so Keir Starmer created a huge scandal, not like in the United States where no one seems to care, but in the UK, people seem to care.
Like, hey, our ambassador that you chose really does have this.
And then Keir Starmer came out and said, oh, no, he lied.
I'm outraged.
I'm the victim.
Keir Starmer's chief of staff, who was Peter Mandelson's protege, Morgan McSweeney, was forced to resign.
Another top level official, the communications officer for 10 Downing Street, was forced to resign yesterday because he maintained a close friendship with a politician who was convicted of having indecent videos and images of children.
I mean, I have to say, I did not think that pedophilia and like a desire, sexual desire for young children or like even, you know, barely post-adolescent children was as pervasive as these documents are all showing it is.
It's interesting, though, that in European countries and other places around the world, people's reputations are being destroyed.
They're forced to resign.
And here in the United States, other than like Larry Summers, Larry Epstein, Larry Epstein Summers, the former Clinton Secretary of Treasury, other than he being kicked out of some epidemic clubs and Harvard and the like, and Noam Chomsky being canceled by the left, there really aren't any repercussions.
And it's not, I'm not saying Howard Lutnick's relationship was as close and extensive to Jeffrey Epstein as Peter Mandelson's was, but Howard Luttnick, for sure, deliberately and blatantly lied.
Why We Left Wondering00:00:30
And I guess I'm left wondering and maybe it's naive, but we used to care about that.
Like you cannot come out and just, you can lie, you can deceive.
We know politicians well, but not this brazenly.
And aside from the complete lack of ethics that it demonstrates Howard Luttnick has, there's also like a stupidity involved, like a blindness, just pragmatically.
I mean, how do you not know that that story is about to be debunked once these emails come out?