In a newly released House Oversight transcript, commerce secretary Howard Lutnick says he met Jeffrey Epstein only three times—2005 coffee, a 2011 scaffolding visit, and 2012 lunch on his island—and denies any ongoing personal or professional tie, amid scrutiny over post-2008 correspondence and his past podcast account.
In House committee transcript, commerce secretary denied any further contact with disgraced financier
The US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, told lawmakers in a closed-door interview earlier this month that he met Jeffrey Epstein only three times and had no “personal or professional relationship” with the disgraced financier, according to a newly released transcript of the meeting.
“I unequivocally condemn the conduct attributed to Jeffrey Epstein and everyone who participated in his illegal activities,” Lutnick said in his opening statement before the House Oversight and Reform Committee.
The comments came during a closed-door interview before the House Oversight and Reform Committee earlier this month, during which lawmakers questioned Lutnick for several hours about his previous ties to Epstein and his past statements about their interactions.
According to the transcript, released on Wednesday afternoon, Lutnick said he met Epstein, whom he said lived “adjacent to my New York City home”, on only three occasions. Lutnick said that the first meeting occurred in 2005, when he and his wife were invited for coffee at Epstein’s home. The second was in 2011, when he said he briefly visited Epstein’s home to discuss “scaffolding”, and the third, Lutnick said, was in 2012, when Epstein invited him, his family and friends to lunch on his private island.
“To the best of my recollection, those were the only three occasions in which I interacted with Epstein in person,” Lutnick said. “Each and every one was meaningless and inconsequential.”
“I had no personal or professional relationship with this individual, despite the proximity of our addresses,” he added. “Further, at no time during these limited interactions did I witness any conduct, let alone the type of illegal conduct of which we have since become aware.”
Lutnick agreed to sit for the transcribed interview with the committee in March, after the justice department released millions of documents related to Epstein, including documents showing that Lutnick continued correspondence with Epstein after the disgraced financier’s 2008 conviction of soliciting prostitution from a minor. The revelation also contradicted a previous claim Lutnick made on a podcast last year that he and his wife had severed ties with Epstein in 2005 after visiting his home.
Epstein died in a Manhattan jail in 2019, while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.
Much of the questioning in front of the House panel centered around Lutnick’s podcast interview from last year.
Lutnick recounted the 2005 visit to Epstein’s home to the lawmakers, and said that Epstein showed him and his wife around his townhouse, and that at one point he opened a door and there was a massage table.
Lutnick said he asked Epstein why he had a “massage table in the middle of his house” and how often he received massages, to which he said that Epstein responded “every day and the right kind of massage”.
“He said it to me, and my wife is standing next to me, and we looked at each other, and we left,” Lutnick told lawmakers, adding that he interpreted the “right kind of massage” to be “in some form sexual in nature”.
Afterward, he said, he and his wife left Epstein’s home and “discussed that I would not establish a personal nor professional relationship with that individual”. He added that “on a podcast in October 2025, I informally recounted that conversation”.
Democratic lawmakers challenged his statements, noting that Lutnick had said on the podcast that he was “never in the room with him socially, for business, or even philanthropy” after 2005.
Lutnick defended his statements, arguing that “it is accurate as to what I meant, which is I, Howard Lutnick, as a man, would not be in a situation with him because I felt him gross and inappropriate and not having boundaries; that I would not put myself in a room with him socially, which I did not, professionally, in business, which I did not, and philanthropically, which I did not”.