Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s Ties to Jeffrey Epstein Revealed in DOJ Files

Newly released Justice Department records showed U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick exchanged emails, arranged social meetings and entered at least one business deal with Jeffrey Epstein years after he said he had cut off contact with the disgraced financier, intensifying scrutiny of one of President Donald Trump’s most powerful cabinet members cbsnews +1. The documents, part of a 3‑million‑page Epstein files dump on January 30, also indicated Lutnick and his family planned a 2012 visit to Epstein’s private Caribbean island, Little Saint James, though it remains unclear if the trip occurred bbc +1.

The revelations clashed sharply with Lutnick’s public insistence that he severed ties in 2005 after a disturbing visit to Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse, where he later said he was “grossed out” by a massage table and vowed never to be in a room with Epstein again nytimes. Lutnick, a billionaire and longtime head of Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald, was confirmed as commerce secretary in February 2025 on a 51–45 Senate vote and has since been central to Trump’s aggressive tariff and industrial policy agenda cbsnews +1.

Emails and Deals That Contradict Lutnick’s Story

Emails from 2011 to 2018 showed Lutnick communicating with Epstein and his assistants about travel, social events and philanthropy, including a December 19, 2012 note in which Lutnick wrote that his family would be landing in St. Thomas and asked if “Sunday evening for dinner” worked, a message media outlets said referred to Epstein’s island bbc +1. A follow‑up email around Christmas that year from Epstein’s assistant saying “nice seeing you” suggested at least one in‑person encounter, even as reporters stressed that the precise details of any visit remained uncertain bbc.

Separate documents showed Lutnick and an Epstein entity, Southern Trust Company, signing papers on December 28, 2012 to buy stakes in the advertising‑technology firm Adfin, tying the two men together in a formal business deal four years after Epstein’s 2008 sex‑offense conviction yahoo. Correspondence about Adfin fundraising continued into 2014, and later emails indicated Epstein pledged $50,000 toward a 2017 dinner honoring Lutnick and received an invitation, via his assistant, to an “intimate” Hillary Clinton fundraiser in 2015 yahoo +1.

Official Pushback and Growing Calls for Oversight

After the files were released, Lutnick told one reporter, “I spent zero time with him,” reiterating that he had “cut ties” with Epstein in 2005, while a Commerce Department statement said the secretary had only “limited interactions with Mr. Epstein in the presence of his wife and has never been accused of wrongdoing” nytimes +1. The department characterized the coverage as politically motivated and sought to shift attention back to the administration’s trade and industrial policies, which Lutnick has helped drive, from tariffs on pharmaceuticals to equity stakes in chipmaker Intel and rare‑earth companies nytimes +1.

The White House declined to offer a separate defense, referring questions to Justice and Commerce, even as Democrats and some Republicans demanded more information about Lutnick’s disclosures during his confirmation and whether his past statements misled lawmakers aljazeera +1. Ethics experts who had already criticized Lutnick for a 2025 “Buy Tesla” stock comment that likely violated federal ethics law said the new records raise fresh questions about potential omissions or misstatements on vetting forms and conflict‑of‑interest reviews newrepublic. Several lawmakers also pressed the Justice Department to provide unredacted Epstein materials to Congress, arguing that only about half of the more than 6 million identified pages were released publicly and that the new revelations about senior officials underscore the need for full transparency aol +1.

The Bigger Picture

The clash between Lutnick’s prior narrative and the documentary record has quickly become a test of accountability for a Trump administration that has already faced repeated ethics controversies. With DOJ granting lawmakers limited access to unredacted Epstein files starting this week and victims’ advocates demanding deeper scrutiny of powerful men named in the trove, pressure is likely to grow for formal inquiries into Lutnick’s answers to Congress, his business entanglements and whether they bear on decisions at the Commerce Department aol +1.