Epstein Island Visitor Howard Lutnick Still Has His Job In Trump’s Cabinet

President Donald Trump is standing by his commerce secretary despite newly released documents indicating Howard Lutnick visited deceased pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein’s notorious Caribbean island years after his criminal conviction and even as congressional calls for his resignation grow.

Lutnick, one of Trump’s top economic advisers, discussed traveling to Little St. James in 2012, according to documents released by the Justice Department in response to a new law demanding the investigatory files in the Epstein prosecution.

A follow-up email from Epstein’s assistant appears to confirm Lutnick did, in fact, travel to the island. The apparent trip took place four years after Epstein pleaded guilty to procuring a minor for prostitution.

The emails contradict earlier statements by Lutnick, the former CEO of investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald, suggesting he had cut off ties with Epstein and did not engage with him socially despite living next door to the financier in New York.

The Commerce Department released a statement attacking the news media — “This is nothing more than a failing attempt by the legacy media to distract from the administration’s accomplishments.” – and did not respond to follow-up questions about the apparent 2012 visit.

White House staff similarly dodged the specifics of HuffPost’s query. “The entire Trump administration, including Secretary Lutnick and the Department of Commerce, remains focused on delivering for the American people,” spokesman Kush Desai said.

Trump himself last week claimed he didn’t know anything about either Lutnick’s or billionaire and political benefactor Elon Musk’s presence in the Epstein files. “I have a lot of things I’m doing, you know, a lot of things. I don’t know. You mentioned two names. I’m sure they’re fine. I’m sure they’re fine,” he told reporters during an Oval Office photo opportunity. “Otherwise, there would have been major headlines.”

In fact, there have been headlines, particularly about Lutnick, whose anti-trade, pro-tariff advice has dominated Trump’s international economic policy since he returned to office. It also led to calls from Democratic members of Congress for Lutnick to resign his Cabinet post — calls that were joined Sunday by Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie, one of the House’s main proponents of the Epstein file legislation.

“Really, he should make life easier on the president, frankly, and just resign,” Massie told CNN.

Lutnick, who lived next door to Epstein in Manhattan, claimed in a podcast last year: “I was never in the room with him socially, for business or even philanthropy.”

That assertion, however, is belied by the DOJ documents, which include emails showing how the two of them were in business together and also socialised. In 2013, Epstein obtained the résumé of Lutnick’s nanny.

The trip to Little St. James, a tiny islet a few miles off St. Thomas, is noteworthy because Epstein’s victims describe it as a site where Epstein sexually assaulted them and offered them to some of his visitors.

There is no evidence that Lutnick interacted with any underage girls during his visit there or at Epstein’s townhouse next door to his own.

But Trump in the past has suggested simply visiting the island is worthy of condemnation, falsely attacking former President Bill Clinton for travelling there.

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles conceded in an interview published last year there was no evidence Clinton ― who was friends with Epstein before his 2008 arrest ― had set foot on Little St. James.

New Mexico Representative Melanie Stansbury, a member of the House Oversight Committee, said she and other Democrats on the panel would like to subpoena Lutnick to appear before the committee but that Republicans were not interested in doing so.

“Of course we would like to speak to Secretary Lutnick, and I personally believe that Mr. Lutnick needs to step down immediately,” she said.

Trump himself had a long friendship with Epstein, which included socialising with both him and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell. Trump has claimed he ended the relationship after Epstein recruited young girls from his South Florida country club, Mar-a-Lago.

However, that recruiting took place starting no later than 2000, and Epstein remained a Mar-a-Lago member until 2007. When asked why it took him seven years to ban Epstein from his club, Trump claimed last year he did not understand the question.

And on Monday, Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, the Democratic ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said an email between Maxwell and Epstein said that in the 2009 period, Epstein was still visiting Mar-a-Lago and had never been asked to stay away.

“And that was redacted for some … inscrutable reason,” he told reporters after reviewing some of the redacted files in their entirety at a DOJ office.

Trump has boasted that while he was invited to visit Epstein’s island, he never went and should be given credit for that. “I never had the privilege of going to his island, and I did turn it down. But a lot of people in Palm Beach were invited to his island. In one of my very good moments, I turned it down. I didn’t want to go to his island,” he told reporters last summer during his visit to his golf course in Scotland.

Epstein died by apparent suicide in 2019 a month after he was arrested on child sex trafficking charges. Maxwell was arrested the following year, was convicted at trial in late 2021 and in 2022 was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.

She was last summer moved to a minimum-security “Club Fed” type prison camp after meeting with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously had been one of Trump’s numerous criminal defense lawyers.

Also Monday, Maxwell claimed her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself during a videotaped deposition with the House Oversight Committee. Her lawyer said she would answer questions only if Trump granted her clemency.

HuffPost reporter Arthur Delaney contributed.