This is an adapted excerpt from the May 6 episode of “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”
On Wednesday, Donald Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, sat for a closed-door interview with Congress to answer questions about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. And according to the Democrats in that room, it didn’t go great.
Following his appearance on the Hill, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., told reporters it was “embarrassing,” adding, “Well, now we know why that interview was not videotaped. If Donald Trump had seen the video transcript, he would’ve fired Howard Lutnick.”
As as we now know, that comment he delivered so confidently was completely untrue.
Lutnick has struggled for months now to answer basic questions about whether he misled the public about his relationship with Epstein. It all stems from a podcast interview he gave last year, in which he claimed to have met Epstein in 2005 and made a snap judgment after leaving his apartment.
“In the six to eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house,” Lutnick said, “my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again.”
But as we now know, that comment he delivered so confidently was completely untrue.
Thanks to the Epstein files, we know that in 2012 — years after Epstein’s first arrest and conviction — Lutnick traveled with his family and his multiple nannies for a visit to his private island. A year later, in 2013, Epstein’s accountant emailed him the résumé for someone he called “Lutnick nanny,” saying he was trying to arrange a meeting between her and Epstein, who had no children.
Epstein and Lutnick also became partners in 2013, investing together in a business venture. In 2015, Lutnick invited Epstein to a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. In 2017, Epstein donated $50,000 to a dinner honoring Lutnick.
As late as 2018, Lutnick and Epstein were still emailing each other about various topics, including the business venture they had both invested in. The files even include the stock purchase agreement for that venture, signed by both the former financier and Lutnick. Curiously, the Justice Department redacted Lutnick’s address in that document while leaving everyone else’s address visible, including Epstein’s, which appears to be a violation of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Lutnick denies any wrongdoing associated with Epstein, and his inclusion in the files does not indicate guilt. But Lutnick has definitely been accused of lying about the extent of his relationship with the sex predator. On Wednesday the commerce secretary admitted that he had in fact been with Epstein on multiple occasions. At the same time, he apparently still insists that does not make him a liar.
According to Khanna, Lutnick attempted to redefine the meaning of the word “I” during his interview. “He made a farce of the English language,” the California Democrat said. “He was trying to define ‘I’ as if saying that what he really meant was that he would not see Epstein alone, but would be totally fine with his wife and kids seeing Epstein. It made no sense.”
So he was comfortable with his wife and kids being around a known predator, but he would never be alone with him?
Lutnick also reportedly told the committee that Epstein didn’t engage in any “blackmailing,” another claim that directly contradicts his past statements. During that same podcast interview last year, Lutnick said Epstein was the “greatest blackmailer ever.”
Clearly, Lutnick was willing to say all kinds of things about Epstein when he appeared on the podcast of a conservative tabloid. But once he was in front of Congress, once he knew he would actually be held accountable for the things he said, his answers got a whole lot murkier.
In many ways, Lutnick is the perfect symbol of Trump’s Epstein problem: One day he’s playing to the base, talking about how disgusting Epstein is, and the next day he’s dodging questions about his own ties to Epstein and hoping it all just goes away.
Keep on hoping, guys, because it definitely isn’t going away.
Allison Detzel contributed.
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