Lutnick's testimony in Epstein probe earns harsh criticism from House Democrats
Source: CBS News
Updated on: May 6, 2026 / 3:48 PM EDT
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testified before the House Oversight Committee behind closed doors on Wednesday, where he faced questions about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and his evolving statements about their history. Democrats on the committee accused Lutnick of being evasive and misleading the public, calling on him to resign over his changing accounts of his interactions with the late sex offender.
"If you saw the exchanges that my colleagues had with him, you would see he made a farce of the English language," said California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, who accused Lutnick of "changing his story" as new facts have emerged. But GOP Rep. James Comer, the Oversight Committee's chairman, said Democrats were twisting Lutnick's words and had come into the interview to push a "narrative" to damage President Trump. "It's never about holding people accountable that should have prosecuted Epstein years ago. It's always about Donald Trump," Comer told reporters.
Lutnick voluntarily sat for a closed-door transcribed interview, the latest in a procession of powerful people summoned before the committee, many of whom have been subjected to embarrassing revelations in the more than 3 million pages of records known as the Epstein files. The files showed Epstein and Lutnick were in business together as recently as 2014, each investing in a now-defunct advertising company called Adfin.
The files also revealed that in 2012, Lutnick, his wife, Allison, and their children visited Little St. James, the private Caribbean island Epstein owned. Epstein and Lutnick were among a group of men seen in an undated photo from the files that appears to have been taken on Epstein's island. Before those revelations, Lutnick, the former chairman of the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, had maintained he cut off contact with Epstein in 2005, three years before the financier entered a guilty plea to state prostitution charges in Florida.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/howard-lutnick-epstein-deposition-house-oversight-committee/
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