Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Tuesday he will testify about his ties to the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as the House Oversight Committee seeks interviews with seven other associates.
“I look forward to appearing before the committee,” Lutnick first told Axios, without immediately sharing a date for the testimony. “I have done nothing wrong and I want to set the record straight.”
Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) also said in a statement Tuesday that the Cabinet official had “proactively agreed” to do so — after Democrats on the panel pushed for Lutnick’s to be subpoenaed for questioning.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick will testify before the House Oversight Committee about his association with the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. AFP via Getty Images
Lutnick agreed to the voluntary interview after this undated photo of him wandering alongside Epstein on the financier’s private island surfaced in official Justice Department disclosures. U.S. Department of Justice“I commend his demonstrated commitment to transparency and appreciate his willingness to engage with the Committee. I look forward to his testimony,” Comer added.
The Oversight Committee later released letters requesting transcribed interviews with Goldman Sachs’ top lawyer Kathryn Ruemmler, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and ex-Bill Clinton aide Doug Band.
Voluntary testimony was also sought from Apollo Global Management cofounder Leon Black, billionaire philanthropist Ted Waitt, and Epstein assistants Lesley Groff and Sarah Kellen.
The Department of Justice has released millions of pages of documents from its investigation into Epstein and his convicted madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, since the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act last November.
Many of the requested interviewees have since faced tough questions because of their chumminess with the late pedophile in email exchanges.
Lutnick agreed to the voluntary interview after an undated photo of him wandering alongside Epstein on the financier’s private island surfaced in official Justice Department disclosures — before being removed from the DOJ website, CNN first reported.
In an early February hearing before Congress, the commerce secretary also had admitted to a lunch visit with Epstein on Little St. James that lasted roughly an hour in 2012.
“We left with all of my children, with my nannies and my wife. All together. We were on a family vacation. We were not apart,” Lutnick told a Senate subcommittee. “I don’t recall why we did it, but we did.”
Lutnick copped in the hearing to sharing drinks with the then-registered sex offender the year before in May, which was memorialized in emails released as part of the DOJ’s Epstein Library.
Republicans and Democrats on the Oversight panel had also been calling for Lutnick to be issued a subpoena to testify amid the depositions of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) in particular pressed Hillary Clinton in her deposition on another email revealing Lutnick had invited Epstein to a campaign fundraiser in 2015 during the ex-first lady’s run for the presidency.
Epstein, 66, was found dead on Aug. 10, 2019, in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges involving young girls. Federal investigations and medical examiners later ruled it a suicide.
The former Bear Stearns trader and money manager for Victoria’s Secret CEO Les Wexner had enjoyed relationships with famous academics, influential politicians and even British royalty before his death.
DOJ files also contain FBI forms documented from 2020-2021 alleging that the two businessmen had a suspicious financial relationship. AP
Epstein was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell on Aug. 10, 2019. Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
Lutnick also spoke with The Post’s Miranda Devine, telling her that he and his wife were given a tour of his ex-neighbor’s infamous East 71st Street townhouse in 2005 — featuring the notorious “massage room.” Ron Sachs – CNP for NY PostSome of those associations continued even after he pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2008, served 13 months in a Florida state prison and had to register as a sex offender.
President Trump supported Lutnick on Friday, telling reporters, “Howard would go in and do whatever he has to say. He’s a very innocent guy, doing a good job.”
The picture, admissions and records directly contradicted the Cabinet official’s remarks on “Pod Force One” last October, when Lutnick said he “was never in the room with him [Epstein] — socially, for business or even philanthropy.”
The 64-year-old former CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald recounted to The Post’s Miranda Devine how he and his wife were given a tour of his then-neighbor’s infamous East 71st Street townhouse in 2005 — including its notorious “massage room.”
“They get a massage, that’s what his MO was. ‘Get a massage, get a massage,’ and what happened in that massage room, I assume, was on video,” the commerce secretary said. “This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever, blackmailed people. That’s how he had money.”
But after the visit, Lutnick claimed he never set foot in any of Epstein’s residences again or socialized with the financier.
“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 again,” he said.
