WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is standing by his commerce secretary regardless of newly launched paperwork indicating Howard Lutnick visited deceased pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous Caribbean island years after Epstein’s prison conviction and at the same time as congressional requires his resignation develop.
Lutnick, one among Trump’s high financial advisers, mentioned touring to Little St. James in 2012, based on documents launched by the Justice Division in response to a brand new regulation demanding the investigatory recordsdata within the Epstein prosecution. A follow-up e-mail from Epstein’s assistant seems to substantiate Lutnick did, actually, journey to the island. The obvious journey befell 4 years after Epstein pleaded responsible to procuring a minor for prostitution.
The emails contradict earlier statements by Lutnick, the previous CEO of funding financial institution Cantor Fitzgerald, suggesting he had minimize off ties with Epstein and didn’t have interaction with him socially regardless of residing subsequent door to the financier in New York.
The Commerce Division launched a press release attacking the information media — “That is nothing greater than a failing try by the legacy media to distract from the administration’s accomplishments.” – and didn’t reply to follow-up questions in regards to the obvious 2012 go to.
White Home employees equally dodged the specifics of HuffPost’s question. “Your complete Trump administration, together with Secretary Lutnick and the Division of Commerce, stays targeted on delivering for the American folks,” spokesman Kush Desai stated.
Trump himself final week claimed he didn’t know something about both Lutnick’s or billionaire and political benefactor Elon Musk’s presence within the Epstein recordsdata. “I’ve a variety of issues I’m doing, you recognize, a variety of issues. I don’t know. You talked about two names. I’m certain they’re fantastic. I’m certain they’re fantastic,” he told reporters throughout an Oval Workplace picture alternative. “In any other case, there would have been main headlines.”
In truth, there have been headlines, notably about Lutnick, whose anti-trade, pro-tariff recommendation has dominated Trump’s worldwide financial coverage since he returned to workplace. It additionally led to calls from Democratic members of Congress for Lutnick to resign his Cupboard put up — calls that had been joined Sunday by Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie, one of many Home’s most important proponents of the Epstein file laws.
“Actually, he ought to make life simpler on the president, frankly, and simply resign,” Massie told CNN.
Lutnick, who lived subsequent door to Epstein in Manhattan, claimed in a podcast final 12 months: “I used to be by no means within the room with him socially, for enterprise and even philanthropy.”
That assertion, nonetheless, is belied by the DOJ paperwork, which embrace emails exhibiting how the 2 of them had been in enterprise collectively and likewise socialized. In 2013, Epstein obtained the résumé of Lutnick’s nanny.
The journey to Little St. James, a tiny islet a couple of miles off St. Thomas, is noteworthy as a result of Epstein’s victims describe it as a web site the place Epstein sexually assaulted them and provided them to a few of his guests.
There isn’t any proof that Lutnick interacted with any underage ladies throughout his go to there or at Epstein’s townhouse subsequent door to his personal.
However Trump prior to now has steered merely visiting the island is worthy of condemnation, falsely attacking former President Invoice Clinton for touring there. White Home chief of employees Susie Wiles conceded in an interview revealed final 12 months there was no proof Clinton ― who was associates with Epstein earlier than his 2008 arrest ― had set foot on Little St. James.
New Mexico Rep. Melanie Stansbury, a member of the Home Oversight Committee, stated she and different Democrats on the panel wish to subpoena Lutnick to seem earlier than the committee however that Republicans weren’t inquisitive about doing so.
“After all we wish to converse to Secretary Lutnick, and I personally imagine that Mr. Lutnick must step down instantly,” she stated.
Trump himself had a protracted friendship with Epstein, which included socializing with each him and his confederate, Ghislaine Maxwell. Trump has claimed he ended the connection after Epstein recruited younger ladies from his South Florida nation membership, Mar-a-Lago.
Nevertheless, that recruiting befell beginning no later than 2000, and Epstein remained a Mar-a-Lago member till 2007. When requested why it took him seven years to ban Epstein from his membership, Trump claimed final 12 months he didn’t perceive the query.
And on Monday, Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the Democratic rating member of the Home Judiciary Committee, stated an e-mail between Maxwell and Epstein stated that within the 2009 interval, Epstein was nonetheless visiting Mar-a-Lago and had by no means been requested to remain away. “And that was redacted for some … inscrutable purpose,” he instructed reporters after reviewing a few of the redacted recordsdata of their entirety at a DOJ workplace.
Trump has boasted that whereas he was invited to go to Epstein’s island, he by no means went and ought to be given credit score for that. “I by no means had the privilege of going to his island, and I did flip it down. However lots of people in Palm Seaside had been invited to his island. In one among my superb moments, I turned it down. I didn’t need to go to his island,” he instructed reporters final summer season throughout his go to to his golf course in Scotland.
Epstein died by obvious suicide in 2019 a month after he was arrested on youngster intercourse trafficking costs. Maxwell was arrested the next 12 months, was convicted at trial in late 2021 and in 2022 was sentenced to twenty years in federal jail.
She was final summer season moved to a minimum-security “Membership Fed” sort jail camp after assembly with Deputy Lawyer Common Todd Blanche, who beforehand had been one among Trump’s quite a few prison protection attorneys.
Additionally Monday, Maxwell claimed her Fifth Modification proper to not incriminate herself throughout a videotaped deposition with the Home Oversight Committee. Her lawyer stated she would reply questions provided that Trump granted her clemency.
HuffPost reporter Arthur Delaney contributed.
