Howard Lutnick faces intense closed-door grilling over Epstein ties as he fights to stay in Trump's good graces

By VICTORIA CHURCHILL, US POLITICAL REPORTER Published: 16:18, 6 May 2026 | Updated: 16:29, 6 May 2026 President Donald Trump's Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has arrived on Capitol Hill for a closed-door transcribed interview regarding his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.  He did not take questions from the media while arriving in Congress.  Republican James Comer noted to members of the media that Howard Lutnick's Epstein deposition marked a new level of transparency in the Epstein Investigation. 'I've been on the Oversight Committee [for] 10 years and there's never been a chairman bring in cabinet secretaries of their own party,' Comer noted. The congressional investigation into Epstein, the convicted pedophile financier who died in prison in 2019 after being indicted on federal sex trafficking charges, has seen top political figures dragged to testify about their ties. Lawmakers have tried to get Lutnick to talk about Epstein during two unrelated congressional hearings in recent months. During a routine testimony about his department's budget requests, Lutnick was forced into a spectacular showdown on Capitol Hill with Democrats probing his ties to Epstein last month. Pam Bondi, Trump's former Attorney General, was removed from her post in part due to her disastrous testimony in the Epstein case back in February.  US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick arrives for an interview with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee as part of the panel's ongoing probe of late sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, U.S., May 6, 2026 An image from the Epstein files shows Howard Lutnick (in blue) with along with Jeffrey Epstein Robert Garcia, Democrat ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, noted in a statement that Trump 'fired Attorney General Pam Bondi following her botched handling of the Epstein files and failure to comply with the Oversight Committee's subpoena and the Epstein Files Transparency Act.' Lutnick, his wife, and his children had lunch with Epstein on his island in December 2012, years after the pedophile's conviction, according to documents released by the Justice Department. Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting a prostitute and procuring a child for prostitution in 2008. The secretary claimed in February that he had 'nothing to hide' about his connection to Epstein. But he was put on the spot about it during the explosive hearing last month.  Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen demanded Lutnick provide more information about his ties to Epstein and accused him of withholding details. Lutnick dodged the question, saying he was focused on testifying about Trump's budget. 'I am volunteering within two weeks to answer any and all questions on this topic,' Lutnick stated last month. In a separate clash with Lutnick back in February, Van Hollen claimed, '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,' before asking him if he noticed anything inappropriate during the visit. The secretary responded that he did not see anything other than staff working for Epstein on the island. Van Hollen then doubled down on the timing of the trip, asking 'You realize that this visit took place after he had been convicted, right?' 'I mean, you made a very big point of saying that you sensed that this was a bad person in 2005 and then of course in 2008 he was convicted of soliciting prostitution of a minor and, and yet you went and had this trip and other interactions,' Van Hollen said, highlighting the apparent hypocrisy. Earlier in the hearing, Lutnick detailed that he first interacted with Epstein after buying the house next door to his in New York City, but was so disgusted that he did not maintain a relationship. He visited his new neighbor with his wife, an interaction during which he was so creeped out by a massage table he saw in Epstein's house that he decided he wasn't worth maintaining a relationship with and cut off contact 'socially, for business or even philanthropy' in 2005. Speaking with host of the New York Post's Pod Force One podcast Miranda Devine last year, Lutnick stated that 'if that guy was there, I wasn't going because he's gross.' However, Lutnick described the meeting with Epstein in the following manner while testifying under oath before the committee on Tuesday. 'I did have lunch with him, as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation,' Lutnick said. '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 added. 'And we left with all of my children, with my nannies and my wife, all together. We were on family vacation,' he concluded. Lutnick's name also came up during the Epstein deposition of former Secretary of State and First Lady Hillary Clinton, who exploded on Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace while explaining how she met Lutnick after the 9/11 attacks. Mace grilled Clinton over her ties to Jeffrey Epstein and the current Trump official during a marathon congressional deposition that took place in Chappaqua, New York at the end of February. Lutnick had attempted to recruit Epstein to attend an 'intimate fundraiser' for Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign. In a video of the deposition, the former first lady and secretary of state can be seen getting visibly angry after Mace interrupts her. 'You asked the question, I'm going to answer your question. This was what I spent my time doing!' Ahead of the sudden outburst, Clinton was detailing how she came to know Lutnick. 'I know Howard Lutnick, because when I was Senator on 9/11, the firm he headed, Cantor Fitzgerald, suffered the greatest loss of life,' she continued. 'As I recall, something like 650 of his employees were murdered by terrorists that day. Howard Lutnick missed being a victim because he was delayed dropping his child off to kindergarten.' The former Secretary of State was deposed at the end of February, as was her husband, former President Bill Clinton. No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. Your details from Facebook will be used to provide you with tailored content, marketing and ads in line with our Privacy Policy.