House Oversight Committee Releases Transcript of Howard Lutnick’s Interview on Past Epstein Interactions

The House Oversight Committee on May 13, 2026, released the transcript of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's closed-door interview with lawmakers conducted on May 6. Lutnick described three meetings with Jeffrey Epstein and backed away from a podcast claim last year that Epstein had engaged in blackmail.

Lutnick, who for years was neighbors with Epstein in New York City, told the committee he purchased the property next to Epstein’s home on New York’s Upper East Side in 1997.

He did not move into the property until renovations were complete in 2005. That same year, Lutnick and his wife Allison toured Epstein’s townhouse. During the 2005 tour, Epstein showed a massage table and made a sexual innuendo.

Lutnick recounted a crude remark Epstein made about getting the right kind of massage while Lutnick’s wife stood next to him. "He said it to me, and my wife is standing next to me, and we looked at each other, and we left," Lutnick said. After the 2005 townhouse tour, Lutnick and his wife decided they would avoid Epstein.

Lutnick claimed on a podcast last year that he had been determined to never be in a room again with Epstein after that encounter. He told lawmakers his two other personal interactions with Epstein years later were meaningless and inconsequential. One of those interactions occurred in 2011 when Lutnick made a brief visit to Epstein’s home to discuss scaffolding that would be installed at Epstein’s townhouse.

In 2012, Lutnick, his wife Allison and their children visited Epstein’s private island Little St. James. During the island visit, Lutnick, his family, Epstein’s staff and Epstein sat outside and had lunch.

Lutnick told the committee he could not remember why his family made the visit to Epstein’s island. An undated photo from the Epstein case files shows Epstein and Lutnick among a group of men on the island. The files contain more than 3 million pages of records.