Email reveals the Lutnicks’ eagerness to visit Epstein’s island: ‘We would love to join you’
At the time of their trip, Epstein was actively involved in developing his trafficking empire, working with known accomplices to capture girls and manipulating women already under his control.
The US Secretary of Commerce spent the majority of a four-hour interview with congressional investigators emphasizing the disdain he and his wife had for their former neighbor, Jeffrey Epstein — a claim wholly undermined by his spouse’s own words.
The House Oversight Committee asked Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to speak with them after a 2012 photo surfaced showing him with Epstein on the financier’s private island, a known hub of Epstein’s sex trafficking operation. During the deposition, Lutnick admitted that he briefly visited the island with his family, but was adamant that he and his wife, Allison — also a Trump appointee — had agreed when they first met Epstein to never establish a relationship with him.
“I had an informal conversation with my wife, and that’s what we discussed, and I would think that most people who are married would understand,” said Lutnick. “They have a conversation with their wife, that someone says something inappropriate, gross, gross, that when you leave with your wife, she says, ‘You should avoid that guy. He’s gross,’ right. And I did. So I don’t think that’s like — I think that’s kind of inconsequential, which means just avoid him, which I did.”
Throughout the deposition, Lutnick repeatedly pointed to his wife’s insistence that he avoid a personal or professional relationship with Epstein. But despite his insistence — Lutnick referenced his wife at least 50 times, almost always in connection to how they both found Epstein “gross” or “disgusting” — Allison’s correspondence with Epstein’s staff when coordinating their island visit tells a very different story.
“Hi Lesley. This is Allison Lutnick. We are looking forward to visiting you,” Allison wrote to Lesley Groff, Epstein’s personal assistant. “We will be coming from Caneel Bay in the morning. We are a crowd...2 families each with 4 kids ranging in age from 7-16! 6 boys and 2 girls. I hope that’s okay. We would love to join you for lunch.”
The Lutnicks’ eager decision to sail a yacht full of minors to Epstein’s island came eight years after the couple says they agreed to avoid him and four years after Epstein registered in New York as a sex offender for soliciting an underage prostitute. At the time of the visit, Epstein was actively expanding his trafficking empire, according to documents released as part of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. In the weeks before and after the Lutnicks’ trip, Epstein was actively working with known accomplices to procure girls and manipulating women already under his control.
Allison’s apparent enthusiasm for spending part of her family’s winter holiday with Epstein pokes holes in her husband’s flimsy yet carefully crafted testimony before Congress. Throughout the four-hour deposition, Lutnick’s memory appears to begin and end where his name is mentioned in the Epstein Files. He vividly recalled writing exactly four emails to Epstein, claimed that their last communication was a 2018 correspondence included in the Files, and remembered only the portion of Epstein’s island shown in the released photograph.
Lutnick initially denied having any contact with Epstein after 2005, even after emails confirmed the 2012 island visit; it was only after the photograph of him there became public that his memory was apparently jogged. US Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-VA), a member of the Oversight Committee who questioned Lutnick, believes the Commerce Secretary had a personal and professional relationship with Epstein for years — far beyond what he disclosed to the committee.
“The most likely explanation here is that the visit to Epstein’s townhome when they, as neighbors, went over to visit — the entire story about Lutnick and his wife being, quote, grossed out by Epstein — it’s fabricated. I think that’s the logical explanation here, that Lutnick completely fabricated that original story after the fact, many years later, now, that Epstein is a liability,” Rep. Walkinshaw told COURIER. “It’s clear, based on that email and the other contact between Lutnick, Lutnick’s wife, and Epstein, and Epstein’s orbit, that there was a dialog and a relationship for many years — a friendly one, and they had no qualms about having a relationship and dialog with Jeffrey Epstein.”
The alleged fabrication is one of a series of misleading statements from individuals the Oversight Committee has interviewed as part of its investigation into the government’s lackluster case against Epstein. Earlier this year, close Epstein associates Richard Kahn and Darren Indyke claimed no knowledge of illegal activity — assertions disproved by numerous suspicious activity reports filed by Epstein’s financial institutions, as well as testimony from survivors.
While Oversight Chair Rep. James Comer (R-KY) said he would hold anyone caught lying to Congress accountable, no action has been taken against Kahn, Indyke, or Lutnick. In contrast, former US Attorney General Pam Bondi quickly reversed her plans to ignore the committee’s subpoena after ranking committee member Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) filed contempt charges over her refusal to testify.
Comer, a close ally of President Donald Trump, has so far been resistant to any action that could anger the president, who has worked to oust members of Congress who continue to investigate Epstein. The cooperation between Comer and the White House may provide only temporary reprieve for the Lutnicks and others, however, if Democrats take control of the US House in the 2026 midterm elections.
“In a future Congress, we’ll be able to get Lutnick in, under oath on camera, to answer these questions again, because there’s no question he tried to slip out of the lies that he told publicly,” said Walkinshaw. “I don’t think there’s any scenario under which Chairman Comer and the Republicans would agree to that, given the lengths they went to to keep the Howard interview as under wraps and covered up as possible. I don’t think they would go along with bringing in Mrs. Lutnick, but I think all that’s got to be on the table. We can’t rule out talking to anybody who might have information that could advance our investigation.”
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