WASHINGTON, May 6 (Reuters) - U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told members of a congressional committee in private testimony on Wednesday that he couldn't recall why he and his family had lunch on Jeffrey Epstein's private island, members said.
Lutnick, the former chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald, had lunch with the convicted sex offender for two hours on the island in 2012, contradicting a past public statementabout cutting ties with Epstein years earlier.
In a podcast last year, Lutnick said he vowed to "never be in a room" with Epstein after the financier invited Lutnick and his wife around 2005 to tour his townhome where Epstein made a sexually suggestive comment about a massage table he had set up. Lutnick and Epstein were next-door neighbors on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
"We asked him over and over again, 'Why did you go to the island?'" said Representative Suhas Subramanyam, a Virginia Democrat. "He says he doesn't remember, that it's inexplicable and he simply didn't know how to answer the question."
Representative James Comer, the Kentucky Republican who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said Lutnick was transparent in his voluntary testimony. Comer said Lutnick told the panel Epstein found out his family and friends were vacationing in the Virgin Islands and invited them all to lunch.
"The only thing that I'd seen that Lutnick did wrong was [he] wasn't 100% truthful on the brief visit to the island with his family. He corrected that in his opening statement," Comer told reporters. "If we find that there were any misstatements by Lutnick, it's a felony to lie to Congress and he'll be held accountable."
A massive batch of files released by the Justice Department in January included emails showing Lutnick had apparently visited Epstein's private island for lunch in 2012. The emails also showed Lutnick invited Epstein to a November 2015 fundraiser at his financial firm for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Lutnick told lawmakers at a February 10 hearing that he and Epstein had only exchanged about 10 emails and met three times over 14 years. His family had lunch with Epstein on the island, Lutnick said, because they were on a boat nearby.
"I did not have any relationship with him," Lutnick said of Epstein at the time. "I barely had anything to do with that person."
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to state prostitution charges, including soliciting an underage girl. He was sentenced to 13 months in jail and arrested again in 2019 on federal charges of sex trafficking of minors. His death that year in a Manhattan jail cell was ruled a suicide.
(Reporting by Nolan D. McCaskill. Editing by Michael Learmonth and Sanjeev Miglani)
