Trump administration Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Tuesday admitted he and his family had lunch on the private island of notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein years earlier.
“I did have lunch with him, as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation” in 2012, Lutnick said in testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee.
“My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies,” he said. “I had another couple with — they were there as well, with their children.”
“And we had lunch on the island, that is true, for an hour,” he said.
“And we left with all of my children, with my nannies and my wife, all together. We were on family vacation,” he said.
The secretary’s admission came as he faces bipartisan calls to resign following the release of records showing that his business and personal relationship with Epstein was more extensive than previously known.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick testifies during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies hearing on February 10, 2026 in Washington, DC. Lutnick is facing bipartisan calls for his resignation after revelations that came to light in the latest release of Epstein files.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Lutnick previously said that he cut off contact with Epstein after 2005 — years before Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to a state-level charge of soliciting a minor for prostitution, which required him to register as a sex offender.
But analyses of the latest batch of Epstein files released by the Department of Justice show Lutnick and Epstein were in communication years later.
In December 2012, Epstein invited Lutnick to lunch at his private island in the Caribbean, the documents showed. The two men also had business dealings as recently as 2014, CBS News reported.
Epstein died by suicide in jail in 2019 while facing federal sex trafficking charges.
In his testimony Tuesday morning before the Appropriations panel’s subcommittee on commerce, justice, science and related agencies, Lutnick insisted that he “barely had anything to do with that person.”
“I’m glad to be here to make it clear that I met Jeffrey Epstein when he moved, when I moved to a house next door to him in New York,” the Cabinet secretary testified.
“Over the next 14 years, I met him two other times that I can recall, two times,” he said. “So six years later, I met him, and then a year and a half after that, I met him, and never again.”
“Probably the total — and you’ve seen all of these documents, of these millions and millions of documents — there may be 10 emails connecting me with him … Over a 14 year period.”
“I did not have any relationship with him,” Lutnick said.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., the subcommittee’s ranking member, replied, “There’s not an indication that you yourself engaged in any wrongdoing with Jeffrey Epstein. It’s the fact that you … misled the country and the Congress based on your earlier statements suggesting that you cut off all contact, when, in fact, you had not.”
Asked by Van Hollen if he saw anything inappropriate during his visit to the island, Lutnick said that he did not.
“The only thing I saw with my wife and my children and the other couple and their children was staff who worked for Mr. Epstein on that island,” he testified.
Van Hollen asked if Lutnick would commit to sharing with Congress his own records relating to Epstein in order to “ensure that the file is complete.”
“I will surely talk about that. Hadn’t thought about that,” Lutnick said, adding, “I have nothing to hide. Absolutely nothing.”
