Lutnick acknowledges having visited Epstein’s island after testifying he had cut ties with him

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testified Tuesday on Capitol Hill that he and his family visited the island owned by late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein – after having said previously that he had not. “I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation,” Lutnick to senators regarding his meeting with Epstein in December 2012, according to The Hill newspaper.
Lutnick had previously told senators that he had cut off all contact with Epstein after first meeting him in 2005.
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to procuring a child for prostitution and to soliciting a prostitute. The wealth financier died in a New York City detention center in 2019 awaiting trial on federal sex-offense charges. 
He said that during his 2012 visiti to the island that he didn’t witness any of the sex crimes that are alleged to have happened on the private island.
“My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies,” he testified. “I had another couple – 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 all together.”
He also said: “I don’t recall why we did it.”
Lutnick’s name appeared several times in a batch of Epstein files recently released by the Department of Justice last month. 
In December 2012, Lutnick was invited to Epstein’s island, emails showed, and Epstein’s assistant later wrote on her boss’s behalf, “It was nice seeing you.”
Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat of the Senate Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations Subcommittee, said the Epstein files call into question Lutnick’s reliability as a congressional witness.
“You led people to believe that you had cut off all contact with Jeffrey Epstein after the 2005 encounter you and your wife had in his apartment. As I’m sure you know, the Epstein files show a very different record of interaction,” Van Hollen said.
Previously, Lutnick claimed that he was alarmed by Epstein’s character after meeting the financier when he became his neighbor in New York City because Epstein made sexual innuendos about a massage table in his Manhattan apartment.
“Why do the Epstein files show you coordinating a meeting and planning a visit with Jeffrey Epstein on his private island in December of 2012?” Van Hollen asked.
Lutnick said he first met Epstein after he moved into a house next door to him in 2005.
“Over the next 14 years, I met him two other times that I can recall. Two times. None for six years. Six years later, I met him. And then a year and a half after that I met him, and never again,” Lutnick testified.
“Of these millions and millions of documents, there may be 10 emails connecting me with him, probably 10 emails connecting me with him. Over a 14-year period, I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with that person,” he said.
Van Hollen said this new information was not what Lutnick previously told Congress.
“Secretary Lutnick, I think you understand the root of concern here. It’s the way you described very emphatically his first encounter with him in his apartment. You said you were disgusted, would never have any contact with him again,” the senator said. “Did you in fact make the visit to Jeffrey Epstein’s private island?”
Lutnick then said that he did visit Epstein on the island, but insisted that he didn’t see any suspicious or unlawful behavior.
“The only thing I saw with my wife and my children and the other couple and their children were staff who worked with Mr. Epstein on that island,” Lutnick said.
Van Hollen noted that the visit happened after Epstein was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor.
He also asked Lutnick about a document suggesting that he joined a dinner with Woody Allen at Epstein’s residence in 2011.
“No,” Lutnick said. “I actually don’t know what you’re referring to.
“I looked through the millions of documents for my name, just like everybody else, and what I found was there was a document that said that I had a meeting with him in May, I think, for an hour at five o’clock. Not dinner or otherwise,” he said.

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