The president has sought to distance himself from his commerce secretary after the latter was caught lying about his ties to child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
President Donald Trump also insisted that, unlike the embattled Howard Lutnick, he never visited the Virgin Islands haven where Epstein’s heinous crimes took place—but he feared that someone might one day suggest otherwise.
Asked if he was aware that Lutnick had visited Epstein’s private island, Trump, 79, told reporters on Thursday: “No, I wasn’t aware of it.”
“I actually haven’t spoken to him about it,” the president added, “but from what I hear, he was there with his wife and children, and I guess in some cases, some people were.”
Trump continued: “I wasn’t. I was never there. Somebody will someday say that, but I was never there.”
Lutnick, the 64-year-old billionaire former head of investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald, used to live next to Epstein’s townhouse mansion on Manhattan’s East 71st Street.
But in an interview last year as the political firestorm engulfed the administration, he claimed he met Epstein only once, in 2005, and after that encounter, he and his wife vowed never to be in a room with him again.
The Commerce Secretary and MAGA loyalist also described Epstein as “disgusting” and said he cut off all contact after that year.
However, the latest tranche of files released by the Justice Department revealed that Lutnick and Epstein were in email contact years after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor in 2008, including messages arranging calls and lunches.
Lutnick was cornered about this when he was hauled before a Senate hearing on Tuesday.
Asked by Senator Christopher Van Hollen why the Epstein files showed Lutnick “coordinating a meeting and planning a visit with Jeffrey Epstein on his private island in December of 2012,” Lutnick said he first met the sex offender when they became neighbors in 2005.
“Over the next fourteen years, I met him two other times that I can recall. Two times. And that is none for six years,” he continued, insisting that they did not have a personal relationship.
However, when pressed on whether he had lunch on Epstein’s private island, he acknowledged: “I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation. My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies.”
“We had lunch on the island. That is true, for an hour, and then we left with all of my children, and my nannies, and my wife, all together. We were on family vacation.”
The revelation caused a bipartisan backlash and angry calls by Democrats for Lutnick to resign.
The Trump official is hardly the only person in the president’s orbit named in the files, which have been a political headache for the administration for almost a year.
The documents also show how Elon Musk had tried to visit Epstein’s notorious island long after he was known to be a convicted pedophile, with Musk asking which night would have the “wildest party” and talking about wanting to “let loose.”
MAGA kingpin Steve Bannon was also in the files, having numerous exchanges with Epstein—including a bizarre text in which Bannon suggested he wanted to “take out” Pope Francis.
And Trump himself is referenced in the documents more than a million times, according to House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin, who was able to view the documents without redactions this week.
Among those references are uncorroborated FBI tips accusing Trump of sexual assault, fresh ties to Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, and emails between Epstein and his various associates that reference the president.
However, Trump has consistently denied wrongdoing and is now threatening to sue people over the files, including author Michael Wolff, co-host of the Daily Beast’s Inside Trump’s Head podcast, who he claims “was conspiring with Epstein to do harm to me.”
Epstein was a source when Wolff wrote his bestselling book Fire and Fury, which detailed the chaos of the first months of Trump’s first term.
“I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein,” Trump said last week, adding that, “frankly, the DOJ should just say ‘we have other things to do.’”
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