Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) called out Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick after he misrepresented his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
During a Thursday hearing before the House Appropriations Committee, Dean noted that Lutnick falsely claimed he had never spoken to Epstein again after a single meeting in which his wife was present.
“After speaking with the survivors, I again went to the Department of Justice to review the unredacted Epstein files to seek accountability and justice for the victims, the more than 1,000 victims and survivors,” Dean explained. “And today, Secretary Lutnick, I have some questions for you about what I saw.”
“Let’s start with your relationship with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein,” she continued. “In October, you told the New York Post with colorful narration that the last time you saw Jeffrey Epstein was in 2005 when you took a tour of his house, which happened to be right next door to yours… You swore you would never go back.”
Dean pointed out that Lutnick’s statement to the Post “was a lie.”
“You were forced to admit that you had visited Epstein’s private island in 2012,” she explained. “Four years after, Epstein pled guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution and was labeled a sex offender.”
Even that wasn’t the “whole truth,” Dean said.
“It turns out that five days after visiting his island, you and Epstein signed a business deal together as co-investors in a digital advertising company,” she remarked. “Secretary Lutnick, why did you lie to the New York Post about your relationship with Jeffrey Epstein?”
For his part, Lutnick declined to answer questions about Epstein because he had agreed to talk to the House Oversight Committee about the matter.
“I do not accept that answer,” Dean snapped. “We are our own committee. We have our own reason to test your credibility and veracity. Please answer the question. Why did you lie to the Post?”
Lutnick again refused to answer.
“The cover-up continues,” Dean declared. “If President Trump has even a shred of concern about accountability for Jeffrey Epstein’s enablers, he would fire you too.”
“Again, I’m not going to spend the budget day discussing something I’ve set aside time to spend on this topic,” Lutnick insisted.
Dean moved on to ask the commerce secretary about reports that his son was profiting from President Donald Trump’s tariff scheme.
“And your sons figured out how to profit from the high tariffs by buying up refund rights, pennies on the dollar, just as you are out there cheerleading the tariffs, as a result, federal taxpayers like my constituents may now owe your family tens of, or hundreds of millions of dollars,” Dean said.
Lutnick, however, claimed the reporting was false.
“I hope you recognize how fundamentally wrong and corrupt this is,” Dean concluded. “I hope you take accountability and have the decency to resign before you are fired.”
“It’s not true,” the secretary complained.
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