Trump ‘fully supports’ Lutnick, despite his ties with Jeffrey Epstein, says White House

US President Donald Trump "fully supports" Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, despite revelations about his ties with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the White House said on Tuesday (Feb 10). "Secretary Lutnick remains a very important member of President Trump's team and the president fully supports the secretary," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters during a press conference.

This came after Lutnick admitted that he had lunch on the private island of a late convicted sex offender in 2012. But he denied any deeper ties with him, amid bipartisan calls for his resignation. "We had lunch on the island, that is true, for an hour," Lutnick told a Senate committee hearing. But he stressed that he was with his wife, children and nannies. "We were on family vacation," he said. "Over a 14-year period, I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with that person," Lutnick told the Senate Appropriations Committee.

When asked if Trump had a call with the Palm Beach, Florida, Police Department in the mid-2000s about Epstein, Leavitt declined to say anything. “It was a phone call that may or may not have happened in 2006, I don’t know the answer to that question,” she said, adding: “What I’m telling you is what President Trump has always said, is that he kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club because Jeffrey Epstein was a creep and that remains true.”

She added that if the call did take place, it “corroborates” Trump’s account that he had a falling out with Epstein in the early 2000s and cut ties with him. As per the newly released documents in the Files, Trump said on the call, “Thank goodness you’re stopping him. Everyone has known he’s been doing this.”