After subpoena threats, Howard Lutnick agrees to face House Committee over 'Epstein Island' links
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "After subpoena threats, Howard Lutnick agrees to face House Committee over 'Epstein Island' links")
Howard Lutnick with Jeffrey Esptein. This pic was removed by the DoJ after being released as part of the Epstein Files disclosures. Photograph: (Jmail)
Why has Trump’s commerce secretary suddenly agreed to testify about Jeffrey Epstein? Howard Lutnick will appear before Congress after pressure from lawmakers over photos and emails linked to Epstein.
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US President Donald Trump's top aide, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has finally agreed to testify about his friendship with sex offender, paedophile Jeffrey Epstein before Congress. Lutnick's whose photographs hanging out on Epstein's "paedophile island" made headlines recently has agreed to testify in front of House Oversight Committee, revealed James Comer, the chairman of the committee on Tuesday (Mar 3).
Lutnick will testify but conditions apply
According to reports, Lutnick only agreed to testify behind closed doors after Republican Representative Nancy Mace threatened to subpoena him.
"Secretary Lutnick has proactively agreed to appear voluntarily before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform," Republican chairman James Comer said in a statement. However, when will Lutnick do so remains unclear as a date is yet to be announced.
Talking to Axios, Trump's commerce secretary said, "I look forward to appearing before the committee." He asserted that he had "nothing wrong, and I want to set the record straight."
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How close were Lutnick and Epstein?
Lutnick, a billionaire former New York financier, has earlier claimed that he was not friends with the disgraced financier. Appearing in a podcast last year, he claimed that in 2005 he gave Epstein a house tour which left him disturbed. Lutnick stated that following this, he and his wife decided that he would "never be in the room with that disgusting person, ever again…So I was never in the room with him socially, for business or even philanthropy," he said.
However, the recently released Epstein Files revealed that Lutnick and Epstein traded emails well beyond 2005, including after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008.
In 2012, Lutnick even had plans to meet Epstein for lunch on Little Saint James, notoriously known as "Epstein Island." After being caught in a lie, last month, Lutnick confirmed that he did, in fact, meet Jeffrey Epstein on the Caribbean island, but claimed that his family was with him and that he saw nothing untoward on 'Epstein Island'.
