Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told House investigators on Wednesday he steered clear of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein after he visited his home and saw a massage table in 2005, but acknowledged two other encounters over the following seven years.
Mr. Lutnick became the first member of President Trump’s Cabinet to testify in the House Oversight and Government Reform probe into whether Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell trafficked girls to wealthy and influential friends.
Mr. Lutnick answered questions voluntarily and behind closed doors. The GOP-led panel plans to release a full transcript.
According to a source familiar with his testimony, Mr. Lutnick told lawmakers he barely knew Epstein even though the two lived next door to each other, and never saw him with young women or acting inappropriately in any way.
He faced grilling from lawmakers after stating publicly that he had no contact with Epstein after 2005, when he spotted the massage table in Epstein’s home.
Later, additional meetings between the two men were revealed in the trove of documents known as the Epstein files, sparking claims of a cover-up.
Mr. Lutnick, the former chief executive of the securities firm Cantor Fitzgerald, lived next door to Epstein in an affluent neighborhood in New York City from 2005 until 2019.
He told lawmakers that the two had no personal or professional relationship, according to a person familiar with his testimony.
Mr. Lutnick said he had only three meetings with Epstein. The first occurred in 2005 when Mr. Lutnick and his wife met Epstein for coffee in his palatial townhouse, after they first became neighbors.
Epstein “provided a short tour of his home, and that’s where they saw the massage table,” a source familiar with Mr. Lutnick’s testimony to lawmakers said.
Mr. Lutnick decided at that time “he did not want a personal or professional relationship with Epstein.”
Yet he met with Epstein again after Epstein tracked him down while Mr. Lutnick and his family were vacationing in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2012, he told lawmakers.
He said he wasn’t sure how Epstein knew he was in the area, “and found it to be unsettling.”
Mr. Lutnick said he had “a short lunch” with Epstein that included Mr. Lutnick’s family and friends who were traveling with him.
The two men also met once in 2011 to discuss Epstein’s home renovations and how they might impact Mr. Lutnick’s adjacent property.
The latter two meetings took place after Epstein’s 2008 conviction on charges of soliciting prostitution from a minor.
“He never saw Epstein with any young women and never witnessed anything inappropriate with young women,” the source said, describing Mr. Epstein’s testimony to lawmakers.
Democrats accused Mr. Lutnick of covering up a more extensive relationship with Epstein, who was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019 and died by suicide in a New York City jail cell.
“I want clear answers on exactly what his relationship was with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell,” said Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, Virginia Democrat, ahead of the interview with Mr. Lutnick. “I want to know the exact timeline and I want to know why he lied. He has not been consistent with his story.”
