Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s suggestion that Jeffrey Epstein had blackmailed powerful men runs against Justice Department and FBI denials that Epstein had compromising material.
Trump’s commerce secretary calls Jeffrey Epstein ‘greatest blackmailer’
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s suggestion that Jeffrey Epstein had blackmailed powerful men runs against Justice Department and FBI denials that Epstein had compromising material.
For months, President Donald Trump has pleaded with his supporters to move on from the Jeffrey Epstein controversy − calling it a “Democratic hoax” − even as he faces growing calls from Congress and many in his own MAGA base for more disclosure on the jet-setting sex offender.
But Trump’s fellow billionaire and Commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, apparently didn’t get the memo.
Lutnick held forth on a recent podcast about how he found Epstein, who was a close friend of Trump’s for more than a decade, to be “gross” and believed he was a “blackmailer.”
“He was gross,” said Lutnick, in a Oct.1 podcast interview with New York Post’s Miranda Devine. Lutnick described Epstein as the “greatest blackmailer ever” and suggested he had used compromising videos of prominent men to get a 2008 sweetheart deal in Florida amid a child prostitution investigation.
Those comments sharply differ from a memo released by the Justice Department and FBI in July which said that there was no “credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals” or that he kept an “incriminating client list.”
The White House and the Commerce Department didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The mansion next door
Lutnick, a former chairman of finance giant Cantor Fitzgerald, was once Epstein’s next-door neighbor. Their ritzy Upper East Side townhouses shared a wall.
But Lutnick said his very first meeting with Epstein, who died by suicide in a Manhattan jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges, left the future Cabinet secretary with a distinctly negative impression.
The ‘right kind of massage’
In 2005, after Lutnick and his wife, Allison, had just moved into their newly renovated home, Epstein sent an assistant to invite the couple over for coffee.
After giving them a tour of the “big living room,” he led them to a room with double doors.
“I assumed it’s the dining room,” said Lutnick. “And he opens the doors and there’s a massage table in the middle of the room. And candles all around.”
Lutnick said he then asked Epstein how often he got massages to warrant a table in the middle of the house.
“And then he says, ‘Every day,’” recalled Lutnick. “And then, he like gets, like, weirdly close to me. And he says, ‘And the right kind of massage.’”
Soon after the comment, Lutnick said, he and his wife abruptly left Epstein’s mansion.
In the “six to eight steps” it took for them to reach their residence, Lutnick said, the couple decided that he would “never be in the room with him socially, for business, or even philanthropy.”
Epstein has been accused of luring and grooming numerous victims, including underage girls, for sexual abuse.
“If that guy was there, I wasn’t going because he’s gross,” Lutnick said.
Devine asked how other prominent men could have associated with Epstein when Lutnick could immediately sense that he was a “pervert.”
“Did they see it and ignore it?” she asked.
“No. They participated,” responded Lutnick.
“That’s what his M.O. was,” he said. “You know, ‘get a massage, get a massage.’ And what happened in that massage room, I assume, was on video. This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever. Blackmail people. That’s how he had money.”
Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight committee, said on social media that Lutnick’s comments showed the need for further disclosures. “Secretary Lutnick spelled out what we already know: that some of the most powerful men across the country and world were involved in Epstein’s crimes,” Garcia wrote. “We won’t stop until we get the full truth.”
Epstein scandal dogs Trump
Trump and Epstein were friends through the 1990s and fell out in 2003 in a dispute over a Palm Beach estate, according to several accounts. Trump has said he broke with Epstein because the financier had poached staff members from his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Last month, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released pages from a “birthday book” given to Epstein on his 50th birthday with celebratory letters from his influential friends including former President Bill Clinton and one allegedly from Trump.
Trump’s purported message, which he denies writing, was written inside the outline of a naked woman.
🚨🚨HERE IT IS: We got Trump’s birthday note to Jeffrey Epstein that the President said doesn’t exist.
Trump talks about a “wonderful secret” the two of them shared. What is he hiding? Release the files! pic.twitter.com/k2Mq8Hu3LY
— Oversight Dems (@OversightDems) September 8, 2025
The president and his supporters have worked furiously to tamp down a backlash over the Justice Department and FBI’s July statement that there was no Epstein “client list.” Trump and many of his backers, including FBI Director Kash Patel and Vice President JD Vance, had previously stoked conspiracies that the Biden administration was protecting a cabal of child abusers connected to Epstein.
On Oct. 2, after the podcast aired, Garcia sent a letter to Lutnick asking him to “cooperate” in their investigation into possible Epstein co-conspirators.
“In the interest of justice for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and his enablers, and given your firsthand interactions with and knowledge of Mr. Epstein, we demand that you cooperate with the Committee’s investigation by sitting for a transcribed interview with Committee staff,” Garcia wrote.
Delaying a House vote on Epstein files
In Congress, a bipartisan measure backed by Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, and Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, has 217 signatures from House members calling for U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to release the Department of Justice’s files on Epstein. One more vote is needed to force a House vote over the resistance of Speaker Mike Johnson.
Democrats have accused Speaker Johnson of delaying the swearing-in of Democratic Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, who won a special election in Arizona − and whose vote could be instrumental in making the Epstein records public.
In the podcast interview, Lutnick speculated that Epstein had managed to secure a controversial 2008 plea deal in exchange for videos he possessed. The deal allowed him to avoid federal sex trafficking charges.
Epstein instead pleaded guilty to lesser charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida state court and was required to register as a sex offender. He received an 18-month sentence and was permitted to go on “work release” to his office while in custody.
Trump’s association with Epstein has dogged him since his first term in office. In 2019, Trump said he’d had a “falling out” with Epstein, whom he described as a “Palm Beach fixture,” in the mid-2000s.
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House Correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal
.