Lutnick faces lawmakers’ questions for more than 4 hours over past Epstein ties

By Annie Grayer, CNN

(CNN) — Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was grilled by congressional investigators Wednesday about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein following revelations that his contact with the late convicted sex offender extended years beyond what he initially claimed.

Lutnick is the highest-ranking Trump administration official prominently named in the Epstein files — outside of the president himself — and his appearance behind closed doors marks an extremely rare occurrence of a sitting Cabinet official testifying in a congressional probe. It underscores that the Epstein scandal still hangs over President Donald Trump and his administration, despite the president’s repeated efforts to move on from it.

The secretary, who declined to speak to reporters on Capitol Hill Wednesday, faced questions from both Democrats and Republicans on the committee related to his multiple interactions with Epstein, including a 2012 visit to the financier’s infamous Caribbean island with his wife, nannies and children that occurred years after he was said to have cut ties in 2005.

The White House has so far expressed confidence in Lutnick, despite calls for his resignation. When asked on Wednesday whether the commerce secretary’s job is safe, a White House official told CNN, “Howard’s great” and said there are “no planned changes at all” to his role within the administration. But the headache for the Trump administration won’t end with Lutnick’s appearance. The Republican-led panel is expected to question former Attorney General Pam Bondi later this month about her role in overseeing the release of the Epstein case files, which has been mired in controversy.

CNN has reached out to the Department of Commerce for comment.

There had been bipartisan interest in having Lutnick testify to Congress, but Democrats on the panel in particular emerged from behind closed doors on Wednesday heated over their interview with the Trump administration official.

Lutnick, they argued, had not been forthcoming in his testimony, with Arizona Democratic Rep. Yassamin Ansari questioning his credibility and going so far as to call the commerce secretary a “pathological liar.”

Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, meanwhile, called on Lutnick to resign his position. Recounting to reporters how he said the commerce secretary dodged his questions, the Virginia Democrat said he “had to ask him whether he and I were in the same room just now.”

Multiple Democrats said Lutnick could not give a straight answer about why he visited Epstein’s island in 2012 after vowing to never be in the same room with him “socially, for business, or even philanthropy” after a 2005 visit after which he called him “gross.”

House Oversight Chair James Comer said that Democrats misrepresented Lutnick’s closed-door testimony and told reporters he was satisfied with Lutnick’s answers to committee investigators’ “substantive questions” about the three interactions he had with Epstein.

“Right off the bat he corrected his statement on the time that he came to the island,” Comer said of Lutnick. “I feel like that Lutnick has been very transparent. He came in voluntarily.”

In October 2025, Lutnick told the New York Post in a podcast interview that he and his wife decided to cut off contact with Epstein in 2005 after the financier showed off a massage table and made suggestive comments while giving them a tour of his home. But the Epstein files revealed that the relationship between the two men, who lived as neighbors in New York City, went on much longer.

From email correspondence in 2011, a visit to Epstein’s island in 2012, investing in the same business venture in 2013, and corresponding about a neighborhood issue as late as 2018, Lutnick and Epstein kept in contact years after Lutnick claimed to have cut ties.

“He was asked very straightforward questions about whether he regretted misleading the American people,” California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna said of the inconsistency in Lutnick’s past comments. “It was just contortions and lies and no acknowledgement that he misled the American public. And if you saw the exchanges that my colleagues had with him, you would see he made a farce of the English language.”

A source familiar with Lutnick’s testimony told CNN that the commerce secretary testified Wednesday about three meetings he had with Epstein after 2005: a 10 to 15 minute meeting at Epstein’s home in 2005 with his wife, a short lunch on Epstein’s island with family and friends in 2012, and a meeting to discuss scaffolding in Epstein’s foyer in 2011.

“He could remember nothing about the visit to the island,” Democratic Rep. James Walkinshaw of Virginia said. “Couldn’t remember why he was there. Couldn’t remember anything he saw.”

Khanna claimed Lutnick walked back previous comments that Epstein was “the greatest blackmailer ever” after talking to Trump administration officials.

“So, the question is, why is he changing his tune? Who is getting to him in the administration, to basically have him say, ‘Nothing was wrong let’s move on.’ That’s what he was saying,” Khanna said.

But Lutnick said he could not recall who he had spoken to and did not answer when asked if he had spoken with Trump ahead of Wednesday’s appearance, according to the Democrats.

“He could not recall who he spoke to in the administration. It’s also important to note he was asked by a number of us if he spoke to President Trump about today’s testimony, and he refused to answer that question,” Walkinshaw said.

Although Comer said he was satifisied with Lutnick’s testimony, he said “if we find that there were any misstatements by Lutnick, it’s a felony to lie to Congress, and he’ll be held accountable.”

Ahead of the interview, Comer told reporters that he planned to ask Lutnick why his interactions with Epstein spanned years beyond his initial claims. Although Comer conceded that Lutnick was not forthcoming about the extent of his interactions with Epstein, the Republican chairman said judgment is ultimately up to the American people.

“We’re going to ask him all of these questions, and we’ll let the American people judge whether the credibility was damaged or not,” the Kentucky Republican said in a response to a question from CNN. “At the end of the day, I haven’t seen wrongdoing in the email correspondence, but he wasn’t 100% truthful with whether or not he had been on the island. So we’ll see.”

Beyond clarifying his own record with Epstein, Comer suggested Lutnick would have useful testimony for the Republican-led panel given his visit to Epstein’s island.

“We haven’t talked to too many people that have admitted they’ve been on the island,” Comer told reporters.

Testifying in front of a different Senate committee in February, Lutnick confirmed that he and his family had lunch with Epstein on his Caribbean island in 2012 but insisted that the two did not have a relationship.

“I did have lunch with him, as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation. My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies,” Lutnick told the Senate committee at the time. “We had lunch on the island, that is true, for an hour, and we left with all of my children with my nannies and my wife. … I don’t recall why we did it.”

But the commerce secretary also denied at the time that he and Epstein had deeper ties.

“Of these millions and millions of documents, there may be 10 emails connecting me with him… over a 14 year period,” Lutnick told senators. “I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with that person.”

On Wednesday, Ansari said Lutnick tried to downplay his interactions with Epstein as “meaningless and inconsequential.”

“I think he’s used those terms about 20 times so far, and continues to use them,” Ansari said during a break in the questioning.

While a transcript of the committee’s interview will be produced and released publicly, the interview was not videotaped, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Lutnick appeared voluntarily for the closed-door interview with the panel, and Comer said the panel has a precedent for not videotaping witnesses who do so, telling reporters his committee did not videotape billionaire co-founder of Gateway Inc. Ted Waitt for his voluntary appearance last week.

But Democrats suggested the decision to not videotape Lutnick was calculated.

“Well now we know why that interview was not videotaped,” Khanna argued. “If Donald Trump had seen the video transcript, he would have fired Howard Lutnick. It was really embarrassing.”

This headline and story have been updated with additional developments.

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CNN’s Jeremy Herb, Kit Maher, Adam Cancryn and Matt Egan contributed to this report.