Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, a co-author of the regulation that compelled the discharge of the Jeffrey Epstein files, on Sunday referred to as on Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to resign over his links to the late intercourse offender.
Asked on NCS’s “Inside Politics” if Lutnick – who the recordsdata present as having deliberate conferences with Epstein lengthy after saying he broke off contact – should testify, Massie responded, “No, he should just resign. I mean, there are three people in Great Britain that have resigned in politics.”
Lutnick stated in an interview last year that after a 2005 encounter at Epstein’s house, he grew uncomfortable and vowed that he “will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again.” But as NCS has beforehand reported, the documents reveal that Lutnick sought to satisfy with or name Epstein a number of instances since 2005, together with after Epstein pleaded responsible to procuring a minor for prostitution in 2008.
A Commerce Department spokesperson instructed NCS final month, “Secretary Lutnick had limited interactions with Mr. Epstein in the presence of his wife and has never been accused of wrongdoing.” NCS has reached out to the Commerce Department for a response to Massie’s newest feedback.
The congressman stated Lutnick has “a lot to answer for, but really, he should make life easier on the president, frankly, and just resign.”
Massie, who has been a thorn in President Donald Trump’s aspect largely due to his push to compel the Department of Justice to launch the recordsdata, additionally instructed NCS it’s too quickly to say if Congress should name on Trump to testify on his personal links to Epstein.
“The Democrats want to make this about Trump, and the Republicans want to make it about the Clintons. I want to make it about the survivors and getting them justice and transparency,” Massie added.
In an interview with the New York Post’s “Pod Force One,” Lutnick described a creepy interplay alongside his spouse with Epstein in 2005, after they had been neighbors in New York City, which he stated resulted in him not wanting to seem in the identical room as Epstein.
“We share a wall, right? So it’s New York City, so he invites us in. We have coffee in this – and he says, ‘Do you want a tour?’” Lutnick instructed the New York Post. “He gives me a tour in the living room, big living room, and then across from it is double doors. I assume it’s the dining room, and he opens the doors, and there’s a massage table in the middle of the room and candles all around.”
“I say to him, massage table in the middle of your house, how often you have a massage?” Lutnick continues. “And he says, ‘Every day,’ and then he like gets, like, weirdly, close to me and he says, ‘And the right kind of massage.’”
Lutnick stated that after that interplay, “I was never in the room with him socially for business or even philanthropy. If that guy was there, I wasn’t going, because he’s gross.”
While Lutnick described slicing ties with Epstein in 2005, the Justice Department launched paperwork that counsel in any other case. NCS reported that Lutnick tried to ask Epstein to a political fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in 2015. He additionally sought coordinates for his boat captain to hyperlink up with Epstein in 2012, presumably at his Caribbean island.
When NCS’s Kaitlan Collins pressed Trump about Lutnick and Telsa CEO Elon Musk being talked about within the newest drop of Epstein-related recordsdata, he stated, “I’m sure they’re fine. Otherwise, it would have been major headlines.”
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer didn’t give the impression that he intends to compel Lutnick to testify earlier than Congress, regardless of his connections to Epstein.
“Lutnick, it’s my understanding that what he has said publicly is that he went to one of Epstein’s properties with his wife and children,” Comer stated.