Epstein Island Visitor Howard Lutnick Still Has His Job In Trump’s Cabinet | EUROtoday

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is standing by his commerce secretary regardless of newly launched paperwork indicating Howard Lutnick visited deceased pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous Caribbean island years after Epstein’s legal conviction and at the same time as congressional requires his resignation develop.

Lutnick, certainly one of Trump’s high financial advisers, mentioned touring to Little St. James in 2012, in accordance with paperwork launched by the Justice Department in response to a brand new legislation demanding the investigatory recordsdata within the Epstein prosecution. A follow-up electronic mail from Epstein’s assistant seems to verify Lutnick did, in actual fact, journey to the island. The obvious journey occurred 4 years after Epstein pleaded responsible to procuring a minor for prostitution.

The emails contradict earlier statements by Lutnick, the previous CEO of funding financial institution Cantor Fitzgerald, suggesting he had reduce off ties with Epstein and didn’t have interaction with him socially regardless of dwelling subsequent door to the financier in New York.

The Commerce Department launched an announcement attacking the information media — “This is nothing more than a failing attempt by the legacy media to distract from the administration’s accomplishments.” – and didn’t reply to follow-up questions in regards to the obvious 2012 go to.

White House employees equally dodged the specifics of HuffPost’s question. “The entire Trump administration, including Secretary Lutnick and the Department of Commerce, remains focused on delivering for the American people,” spokesman Kush Desai mentioned.

Trump himself final week claimed he didn’t know something about both Lutnick’s or billionaire and political benefactor Elon Musk’s presence within the Epstein recordsdata. “I have a lot of things I’m doing, you know, a lot of things. I don’t know. You mentioned two names. I’m sure they’re fine. I’m sure they’re fine,” he informed reporters throughout an Oval Office picture alternative. “Otherwise, there would have been major headlines.”

In reality, there have been headlines, significantly about Lutnick, whose anti-trade, pro-tariff recommendation has dominated Trump’s worldwide financial coverage since he returned to workplace. It additionally led to calls from Democratic members of Congress for Lutnick to resign his Cabinet put up — calls that have been joined Sunday by Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie, one of many House’s foremost proponents of the Epstein file laws.

“Really, he should make life easier on the president, frankly, and just resign,” Massie informed CNN.

Lutnick, who lived subsequent door to Epstein in Manhattan, claimed in a podcast final 12 months: “I was never in the room with him socially, for business or even philanthropy.”

That assertion, nevertheless, is belied by the DOJ paperwork, which embody emails displaying how the 2 of them have been in enterprise collectively and in addition socialized. In 2013, Epstein obtained the résumé of Lutnick’s nanny.

The journey to Little St. James, a tiny islet just a few miles off St. Thomas, is noteworthy as a result of Epstein’s victims describe it as a web site the place Epstein sexually assaulted them and supplied them to a few of his guests.

There isn’t any proof that Lutnick interacted with any underage women throughout his go to there or at Epstein’s townhouse subsequent door to his personal.

But Trump up to now has prompt merely visiting the island is worthy of condemnation, falsely attacking former President Bill Clinton for touring there. White House chief of employees Susie Wiles conceded in an interview revealed final 12 months there was no proof Clinton ― who was buddies with Epstein earlier than his 2008 arrest ― had set foot on Little St. James.

New Mexico Rep. Melanie Stansbury, a member of the House Oversight Committee, mentioned she and different Democrats on the panel wish to subpoena Lutnick to look earlier than the committee however that Republicans weren’t excited about doing so.

“Of course we would like to speak to Secretary Lutnick, and I personally believe that Mr. Lutnick needs to step down immediately,” she mentioned.

Trump himself had an extended friendship with Epstein, which included socializing with each him and his confederate, Ghislaine Maxwell. Trump has claimed he ended the connection after Epstein recruited younger women from his South Florida nation membership, Mar-a-Lago.

However, that recruiting occurred beginning no later than 2000, and Epstein remained a Mar-a-Lago member till 2007. When requested why it took him seven years to ban Epstein from his membership, Trump claimed final 12 months he didn’t perceive the query.

And on Monday, Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the Democratic rating member of the House Judiciary Committee, mentioned an electronic mail between Maxwell and Epstein mentioned that within the 2009 interval, Epstein was nonetheless visiting Mar-a-Lago and had by no means been requested to remain away. “And that was redacted for some … inscrutable reason,” he informed reporters after reviewing a number of the redacted recordsdata of their entirety at a DOJ workplace.

Trump has boasted that whereas he was invited to go to Epstein’s island, he by no means went and needs to be given credit score for that. “I never had the privilege of going to his island, and I did turn it down. But a lot of people in Palm Beach were invited to his island. In one of my very good moments, I turned it down. I didn’t want to go to his island,” he informed reporters final summer season throughout his go to to his golf course in Scotland.

Epstein died by obvious suicide in 2019 a month after he was arrested on baby intercourse trafficking costs. Maxwell was arrested the next 12 months, was convicted at trial in late 2021 and in 2022 was sentenced to twenty years in federal jail.

She was final summer season moved to a minimum-security “Club Fed” sort jail camp after assembly with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who beforehand had been certainly one of Trump’s quite a few legal protection attorneys.

Also Monday, Maxwell claimed her Fifth Amendment proper to not incriminate herself throughout a videotaped deposition with the House Oversight Committee. Her lawyer mentioned she would reply questions provided that Trump granted her clemency.

HuffPost reporter Arthur Delaney contributed.