U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, the only Trump cabinet official directly connected to Jeffrey Epstein, will testify behind closed doors on Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee.
The long-awaited interview will be transcript only — negotiated with the Republican head of the committee. That stands in direct contrast to other high-profile figures: the same committee released the entire video record of testimony by both former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
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The timeline of Epstein and Lutnick's relationship will likely be at the center of much of the questioning. Lutnick once stated on a podcast that he stopped speaking to Epstein in 2005 after an uncomfortable encounter he and his wife had with Epstein at the financier's townhouse.
"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," Lutnick said. "So I was never in the room with him — socially, for business, or for even philanthropy. If that guy was there, I wasn't going because he's gross."
Documents in the Epstein Files released by the Justice Department, however, tell a much different story. In one photo, Lutnick is pictured on Epstein's island. It remains unclear whether it was taken during the time Lutnick admitted to visiting Epstein in 2012 for what he described as lunch while he and his family were on vacation. Emails also show extensive planning ahead of that visit.
Meanwhile, Epstein's team also passed along a message to Lutnick from Epstein, saying "nice seeing you" after the meeting. The visit occurred after Epstein's 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
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Lutnick maintains that he only met Epstein three times over 14 years, but emails show the two communicated over a dozen years after Lutnick vowed to never speak to Epstein again. At a separate hearing in April, Lutnick refused to answer questions about when and how often he communicated with Epstein.
Lutnick's testimony Wednesday is part of a busy few weeks for the Oversight Committee, which is interviewing more than half a dozen witnesses. They include former Attorney General Pam Bondi, Epstein's assistants, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and the security guard on duty at the prison the night Epstein died in 2019.
