US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has confirmed he visited Jeffrey Epstein's island in 2012, contradicting previous claims that he had cut ties with the sex offender years earlier, before he was convicted.
I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation, Lutnick testified on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies … We had lunch on the island. That is true. For an hour.
Correspondence about the visit was included in Epstein documents released by the US Department of Justice.
Some lawmakers have called on Lutnick to resign, but on Tuesday the White House said he had the full support of President Donald Trump.
The commerce secretary had previously told Congress that he cut ties with Epstein in 2005 after the late financier - a neighbor of Lutnick's in New York - used sexual innuendo to explain why he owned a massage table in a room of his home.
In Tuesday's testimony, he said: Over the next 14 years, I met him two other times that I can recall. The justice department files show Lutnick visited Epstein's Caribbean island on December 23, 2012, four years after Epstein was convicted for soliciting prostitution from a child.
Lutnick's testimony on Capitol Hill marked the first time he publicly confirmed the visit.
I don't recall why we did it, but we did it, he said Tuesday, referring to the lunch. Lutnick has not been accused of any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.
The other time, outside of meeting Epstein on his island, was a year and a half after that when Lutnick said he had an hour-long meeting with Epstein.
Lutnick noted that among the millions of pages of Epstein documents released, roughly 10 emails connect him with Epstein.
Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, grilled Lutnick about the conflicting accounts, criticizing him for misrepresenting the extent of his relationship with Epstein, especially to victims.
The revelation that he visited Epstein's island after claiming to have cut off contact has led to calls for Lutnick's resignation from both sides of the aisle, with prominent figures like Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna and Republican Congressman Thomas Massie urging his departure.
As he testified, survivors of Epstein's abuse were holding a press conference nearby to promote legislation aimed at removing the statute of limitations for sexual abuse survivors to file civil claims.
The legislation, named for Virginia Giuffre, who was a well-known survivor of Epstein's abuse and sadly died by suicide in 2025, seeks to ensure that survivors can seek justice regardless of when the abuse occurred.
Giuffre's sister-in-law highlighted the need for such laws, emphasizing that time should not erase the harm done to survivors.
