Lutnick faces House panel on Epstein ties as Trump cabinet record falls under scrutiny

WASHINGTON. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick spent several hours behind closed doors on Wednesday answering House Oversight Committee investigators about his contacts with Jeffrey Epstein, becoming the first sitting cabinet official in President Donald Trump's second term to sit for a transcribed interview with the panel.

Chairman James Comer, Republican of Kentucky, said after the session that Lutnick had not been fully forthcoming in earlier accounts about the duration of his contact with the late convicted sex offender. Lutnick is the highest-ranking Trump administration official prominently named in the Epstein files outside the president, and his appearance underscored that the Epstein scandal still hangs over the second-term White House.

"We're going to ask him all of these questions, and we'll let the American people judge whether the credibility was damaged or not," Comer told reporters on Capitol Hill. "At the end of the day, I haven't seen wrongdoing in the email correspondence, but he wasn't 100 per cent truthful with whether or not he had been on the island. So we'll see."

Lutnick appeared voluntarily for the closed-door interview. The Washington Post reported that the panel produced a transcript but did not videotape the session, a step Comer defended by citing committee precedent for non-recorded voluntary witnesses. Democrats on the committee called the format an effort to limit public scrutiny.

A changing account

In an October 2025 podcast interview with the New York Post, Lutnick said he and his wife cut off contact with Epstein in 2005 after Epstein showed off a massage table and made suggestive comments during a tour of his New York home. The Epstein files released since then describe a longer relationship. Email correspondence in 2011, a 2012 visit to Epstein's Caribbean island with his wife and children, an investment in the same business venture in 2013, and a 2018 exchange about a neighbourhood matter all post-date the 2005 break Lutnick described.

Testifying before a Senate committee in February, Lutnick confirmed the 2012 island lunch but insisted no relationship existed. "Of these millions and millions of documents, there may be 10 emails connecting me with him over a 14 year period," he told senators at the time. "I did not have any relationship with him."

What the panel asked

Comer told reporters before the session he intended to press Lutnick on why interactions with Epstein extended years past the cut-off the secretary previously described. Democrats on the committee called Lutnick evasive after the interview wrapped, NPR reported, with one member describing the testimony as "contortions and lies." James Marsh, an attorney representing several Epstein victims, said the closed format provided no real substance for identifying alleged perpetrators in the wider trafficking network.

The committee is also expected to question former Attorney General Pam Bondi later this month over her role in overseeing the release of the Epstein files. That release has been mired in controversy and complaints from victims' representatives that key names were withheld.

White House posture

Lutnick has faced calls from some Democrats for his resignation in recent weeks, but the White House has expressed confidence in him. He did not answer questions from reporters on Capitol Hill on Wednesday morning. The cabinet secretary, a billionaire former chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald who lived as Epstein's neighbour in Manhattan, kept a tight schedule of trade and commerce meetings throughout the rest of the day, according to a department spokesperson.

Whether Lutnick's appearance settles the political question is doubtful. Republicans control the Oversight panel and are unlikely to recommend further action. Democrats lack subpoena power. The transcript, once released, will become the durable public record. Comer said his judgment was for the American people to make. "We'll let them judge," he said.