(AFP) – US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has agreed to testify in the congressional inquiry of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the chairman of the committee conducting the investigation said Tuesday.
“Secretary Lutnick has proactively agreed to appear voluntarily before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,” Republican chairman James Comer said in a statement, without specifying a date. Lutnick, a billionaire former New York financier, has faced pressure over his associations with the now-deceased Epstein, especially after publicly released files undercut his claims of when he had severed ties with him.
In a podcast last year, Lutnick recounted moving in next door to Epstein in 2005 and receiving a house tour that left him disturbed. He and his wife decided that he would “never be in the room with that disgusting person, ever again.” “So I was never in the room with him socially, for business or even philanthropy,” he said. But records have emerged showing Lutnick’s plans in 2012 to meet Epstein for lunch in Little Saint James, notoriously known as “Epstein Island.”
Lutnick confirmed in a US Senate hearing last month that he did meet with Epstein on the Caribbean island, but said his family was with him and he saw nothing untoward.
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee began its investigation of Epstein and his imprisoned accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell last year, but the probe has been reinvigorated by the release of a huge trove of government files on the pair. Also on Tuesday, the committee said Comer had sent letters to Bill Gates and six other people seeking their testimony over suspected ties to Epstein.
The Microsoft co-founder is among the prominent names appearing in the documents released by the US Justice Department that revealed close friendships, illicit financial dealings and private photos with the convicted sex offender. Gates has admitted making a “huge mistake” in associating with Epstein but said he “saw nothing illicit” during his time with him.
Epstein pleaded guilty to sex crimes in 2008 under a plea deal that would later provoke intense scrutiny. He was charged a decade later with trafficking minor girls, and died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial. His death was ruled a suicide.
The Oversight Committee has faced allegations from critics of being weaponized to attack President Donald Trump’s political opponents rather than to conduct legitimate oversight. Critics had notably pointed to the lack of testimony by Lutnick, who appears multiple times in the files, while former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton were forced to testify.
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