Democrats hoping to get Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to come clean about his personal and financial friendship with convicted felon Jeffrey Epstein got a helping hand from former US Attorney Joyce Vance.
Appearing on MS NOW with host Erielle Reshef on Thursday, Vance was asked about the pursuit of truth from Lutnick by Democrats that has been stifled by the Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress.
“Lutnick now says that he was only speculating when he suggested that Epstein blackmailed people,” Reshef prompted her guest. “What did you make of that part of his testimony, and how does that fit into the larger investigation here?”
“Well, let me put my prosecutor hat on, my former prosecutor hat on, and talk about how I would deal with a witness like Lutnick during a criminal investigation, which I think is a pretty good approach here,” Vance began. “When someone tells multiple inconsistent stories, you sit them down, hopefully just during an interview, but if necessary, under oath in front of a grand jury, and you get them to explain the lie. People don’t lie for no reason. You know, here there are a lot of plausible excuses. Lutnick could have just been trying to avoid embarrassment telling convenient stories, and this would have been an appropriate opportunity for him to say that — to say that he was trying to soften it. He never did anything wrong, but he now is embarrassed.”
“In hindsight, the fact that that wasn’t the testimony I think is telling,” she cautioned. “And the reality is that because this is happening in a formal oversight hearing setting where you don’t get that sort of a grilling, that one gets in a prosecutorial setting, he’s never been confronted squarely and forced to concede the lie.”
“I think that there’s still more miles to go with Mr. Lutnick,” she suggested. “This is in many ways unsatisfying testimony. As you say, there’s no insinuation that he committed crimes, but he appears to be part of this larger cover-up that permitted Epstein to continue to operate unchallenged.”
She then added, “The final telling point about Lutnick is that the relationship continues after Epstein’s conviction in Florida — after he’s a registered sex offender — he’s still, you know, it’s not just a lunch that he attends on Epstein’s island. He puts his family in a boat to get there. So I think all in all, this is very telling that this is not the final act here.”
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