🧨 This Particular Trump Cabinet Member Overtly and Repeatedly Lied About His Relationship with Epstein

Howard Lutnick’s contradictions are public record. So why is Trump protecting him?

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick just walked into a Senate hearing and admitted something he previously denied: that he visited Jeffrey Epstein’s private island. Not in 2005. Not “before anyone knew.” In December of 2012.

That matters. Not because anyone has produced evidence that Lutnick committed Epstein’s crimes. But because the public has now watched a Cabinet official shift his story in real time — and then watched the White House reward that behavior with protection.

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Now let’s talk about what’s actually in the record.

Howard Lutnick has repeatedly told the public he cut ties with Epstein early. In a fall podcast interview, he described an unsettling encounter in 2005 — a tour of Epstein’s townhouse, a massage table, a creeping feeling — and he claimed he and his wife drew a hard line.

According to CBS News, Lutnick told the New York Post in October that he and his wife decided in 2005: “I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again.”

The Atlantic quoted Lutnick taking it even further: “So I was never in the room with him socially, for business, or even philanthropy.” Then Lutnick told The New York Times,

“I spent zero time with him.”

Those aren’t careful, limited statements. Those are absolutes. “Never.” “Zero.”

But then, just yesterday, Lutnick testified before Congress and admitted he did go to Epstein’s island.

The Hill reported that senators pressed him and he acknowledged a visit to Little St. James in December of 2012. Lutnick described it as a brief lunch during a “family vacation,” saying his wife, children, and nannies were with him. The Atlantic quoted him: “I did have lunch with him… My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies… And we had lunch on the island. That is true. For an hour.”

So here’s the first question any honest person should ask:

How does “I spent zero time with him” become “I had lunch with him on his private island”?

And here’s the second question — the one that should make every survivor of Epstein’s crimes sick to their stomach:

Why did it take a public release of documents for a Cabinet secretary to tell the truth?

Because the deeper issue here is not whether Howard Lutnick saw a crime that day. The deeper issue is that he presented himself to the public as someone who cut Epstein off completely — and the record shows that wasn’t true.

And the record is not just “a lunch.”

According to CBS News, documents in the Justice Department release show Lutnick and Epstein were in business together as recently as 2014. Specifically, CBS reported that on December 28th, 2012 — four days after Lutnick was invited for lunch on Epstein’s island — both men signed a contract, on behalf of their respective LLCs, to acquire stakes in an advertising technology company called Adfin. CBS reported that Lutnick signed for an entity called CVAFH I, and Epstein signed for Southern Trust Company, Inc., and that their signatures appear on neighboring pages.

CBS also reported that emails show Lutnick and Epstein “arranged calls and planned to have drinks” in 2011, and that correspondence connected to Adfin continued until at least 2014, including discussion involving Cantor Ventures, a venture capital subsidiary of Cantor Fitzgerald.

Let me say this plainly: you cannot tell the public “never… for business” and then get caught in contracts and emails showing business continued.

And this is where the date becomes morally radioactive.

By the time of that island lunch and that Adfin agreement in late 2012, Epstein’s background was not a mystery to the people who move through elite circles. Epstein had already pleaded guilty years earlier to Florida state charges involving minors. Again, this does not prove Lutnick committed a crime. But it does collapse the soft excuse so many powerful people reach for: “We didn’t know.”

When someone’s reputation is already scorched — when his name is already associated with predation — the “I had no idea” defense is not a shield. It’s a confession of moral indifference.

And the records don’t stop there.

CBS reported that Epstein sold a property at 11 East 71st Street in New York in 1996 to an entity called Comet Trust, which two years later sold it to Lutnick — and that it became Lutnick’s primary residence next door to Epstein’s mansion. That means this was not some distant acquaintance. This was proximity. This was access. This was two men whose worlds overlapped in ways that go beyond a handshake at a fundraiser.

CBS also reported that Epstein understood the public relations poison he represented — and still remained connected. In 2017, Epstein allegedly agreed to donate $50,000 to a dinner honoring Lutnick, writing to billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson, “hope pr is ok.” He declined the table, saying Lutnick could fill it.

And CBS reported that the relationship continued into 2018, including an email where Lutnick warned Epstein that expansion plans for the Frick Collection might “block your sunlight and views.”

That doesn’t read like “zero time.”
That reads like a relationship that persisted — even if it was transactional, even if it was polite, even if it wasn’t “chummy.”

Here is the reality: the paperwork does not care about your talking points.

So what happens now?

The White House is circling the wagons. The Hill reported that the press secretary said President Trump “fully supports” Lutnick. House Speaker Mike Johnson brushed off calls for resignation. Representative Thomas Massie called for Lutnick to resign. Oversight Chair James Comer did not rule out subpoenas, saying the committee is “interested” in talking to anyone who might help “get justice for the survivorship.” Senator Chris Van Hollen put the most accurate framing on the table: that the issue is misrepresentation to Congress, the public, and survivors.

And I want you to sit with the word “survivors,” because people love to treat Epstein like a Netflix plotline. It’s not a plotline. It’s a graveyard of stolen childhoods. It’s trauma carried in the body. It’s pain that doesn’t evaporate because the predator is dead.

So when a Commerce Secretary steps forward and says, “I have nothing to hide. Absolutely nothing,” and then admits to behavior that contradicts his public story, it is not a harmless PR mistake. It is a choice. It is disrespect. It is the casual contempt of powerful men who believe the public will forget.

This is also bigger than Lutnick.

These releases are showing what many of us have always known: there is a globe-trotting class of power that moves differently — protected, insulated, unbothered. The Atlantic called it a “wealthy, powerful, globe-trotting club,” and it cited Senator Jon Ossoff’s description of an administration that looks like “a government of, by, and for the ultrarich… the Epstein class ruling our country.”

That may sound like rhetoric — until you watch a Cabinet secretary contradict himself on the record, and still get protected at the highest levels.

Here’s the heart of it.

If Howard Lutnick’s relationship with Epstein was truly as limited as he claimed, then he wouldn’t have needed absolutes. He could have told the truth with precision. He could have said: “I knew him, I regret it, I cut ties, here are the dates.” That’s what accountability looks like.

Instead, he gave the public a moral performance — and only corrected the story when documents forced his hand.

And for a government that talks endlessly about “protecting children” and “family values,” that hypocrisy should be unbearable.

Congress should subpoena the documents, the emails, the contracts, the calendars, the flight logs — everything. Not because we are hunting rumors. Because we are establishing truth. And because the survivors deserve a world where powerful men are not allowed to rewrite their own timelines.

If you believe this kind of reporting must remain free for the world, please Click here to become a member or Click here to join as a monthly, annual, or founding member. Your support makes it possible for me to keep following the receipts when powerful people would rather we look away.

Love and appreciate each of you.
Your friend and brother,
Shaun

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