Under mounting pressure from newly unsealed Justice Department files, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was forced to admit Tuesday what he had denied for years: he visited convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s private Caribbean island in 2012—seven years after claiming he had cut all ties and four years after Epstein’s conviction for soliciting a minor.
Testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Lutnick confirmed the December 23, 2012, visit to Little Saint James, describing it as a one-hour family lunch. “My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies,” he testified. “I don’t recall why we did it, but we did it”.
The admission directly contradicts Lutnick’s repeated public statements, including an October 2025 podcast appearance in which he declared he “never” saw Epstein after a 2005 encounter involving a massage table and a sexually suggestive remark. The Commerce Department had previously insisted Lutnick’s interactions with Epstein were “limited”.
“He Should Just Resign”: Bipartisan Fury Erupts
The revelation has triggered rare bipartisan calls for Lutnick’s ouster. Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who co-authored the Epstein Files Transparency Act, told CNN that Lutnick should “make life easier on the President, frankly, and just resign”.
“There are three people in Great Britain that have resigned in politics,” Massie said, citing the UK ambassador and a prince who lost his title. “They did it for less than what we’ve seen Howard Lutnick lie about”.
Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen delivered the most searing rebuke during Tuesday’s hearing, telling Lutnick: “The issue is not that you engaged in any wrongdoing in connection with Jeffrey Epstein, but that you totally misrepresented the extent of your relationship with him, to the Congress, to the American people and to the survivors of his despicable criminal and predatory acts”.
Senators Adam Schiff and Ted Lieu, along with House Oversight ranking member Robert Garcia, have all demanded that Lutnick resign or be fired.
A “Cover-Up” Within the Files
Lutnick’s confirmation came on the same day that Representative Ro Khanna of California, standing on the House floor, named six “wealthy, powerful men” he said the Justice Department had improperly redacted from the Epstein files—including Les Wexner, Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, and four others.
Khanna and Massie had spent two hours on Monday reviewing unredacted documents at the Justice Department. “We found six men they were hiding in two hours,” Khanna said. “Imagine how many they are covering up for in those three million files”.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the department, stating Wexner’s name appears “thousands of times” in the files and that “DOJ is hiding nothing”. But lawmakers remain unconvinced. Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin accused the DOJ of facilitating a “cover-up,” noting Congress has been given only four computers to review over three million documents—a task he calculated would take seven years.
A Day of Reckoning and Remembrance
While Lutnick testified on one side of Capitol Hill, Epstein survivors and the family of Virginia Giuffre gathered on the other to announce Virginia’s Law, legislation introduced by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to eliminate the statute of limitations for survivors of sexual abuse to file civil claims.
Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most prominent survivors and a relentless advocate for accountability, died by suicide in 2025. Her sister-in-law, Amanda Roberts, delivered a message from the family: “No more laws that treat survivors as though time can erase harm. Pass Virginia’s Law”.
The juxtaposition was impossible to ignore. On one side of the Capitol, a Cabinet secretary who spent years minimizing his association with Epstein was finally forced to admit he had lunch on the island. On the other hand, survivors who cannot escape the trauma of Epstein’s network demanded that the law stop protecting powerful men by simply waiting.
Why It Matters
The White House has stood by Lutnick, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stating he “remains a very important member of President Trump’s team”. But the political damage may be irreversible.
Massie, despite drawing Trump’s ire for his pursuit of the Epstein files, is unrelenting. “He was in business with Jeffrey Epstein—and this was many years after Epstein was convicted for sexual crimes,” Massie said. “So he’s got a lot to answer for”.
Lutnick insisted during his testimony: “I know, and my wife knows that I have done absolutely nothing wrong in any possible regard”. But the question no longer centers on criminal wrongdoing. It centers on credibility—and whether a Cabinet secretary who spent years telling the country he had severed ties with a convicted sex offender can govern with the public’s trust.
For the survivors watching from across the Capitol, the answer is already clear.
