Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick downplayed previous visits he had with Jeffrey Epstein — including a trip to Epstein’s private island — in a transcript from an interview with the House Oversight Committee released Wednesday.

Lutnick, a billionaire and former Wall Street investment banker, sat for a closed-door interview with lawmakers last week, where a 2012 visit to Epstein’s private island came into focus, among other past encounters.

Lutnick told lawmakers he had “no recollection of anything being discussed” during his visit to Little Saint James in the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to the newly released transcript.

“If you said chitchat, I’d go with that,” Lutnick said. “‘Discussed’ sounds like there was like a discussion, which I don’t think there was.”

The commerce secretary said in a podcast interview last year that he cut ties with the late convicted sex offender, but documents released by the Justice Department in January under the Epstein Files Transparency Act appeared to contradict him. Lutnick later admitted he visited Epstein’s island during a family trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands with his wife, children, friends and nannies in 2012.

Lutnick told the committee that Epstein’s staff invited him to the island for lunch after learning that he and his family would be vacationing in the Caribbean. Lutnick said he did not know how Epstein’s staff learned of his travel plans and described it as “unsettling.”

Unlike others who have testified before the committee about their relationships with Epstein — including President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and billionaire Les Wexner — Lutnick’s testimony was conducted as a transcribed interview rather than a formal deposition. The interview was not recorded on video. 

A former neighbor of Epstein’s, Lutnick told lawmakers that he first met the financier in 2005 “when his staff knocked on our door and invited my wife and I to come next door for coffee” — an invitation Lutnick said he accepted “sometime later.”

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Erum Salam

Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.