Trump’s commerce secretary creates a big Epstein mess

President Donald Trump’s administration has demonstrated little ability to maintain a unified narrative on Jeffrey Epstein. For months, the White House has been dealing with the fallout from the Justice Department’s decision to not release materials related to the investigation into Epstein, the wealthy financier and convicted sex offender who died by suicide in a Manhattan federal jail in 2019. In July, following widespread outrage after a few of Trump’s top aides backed themselves in a corner, the administration settled on silence as a strategy. Now, as a new PBS/NPR/Marist poll shows 90% of Americans want all or some of the Epstein files released, one of Trump’s top Cabinet officials is suggesting that there is potentially scandalous information being hidden from the public.

On Wednesday’s episode of the New York Post’s “Pod Force One” podcast, ​​Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told host and columnist Miranda Devine that Epstein, his former Manhattan neighbor with whom he shared a townhouse wall, was the “greatest blackmailer ever.” Then the secretary grew even more blunt: “That’s how he had money.” 

Lutnick’s interview presents a significant narrative jolt because it comes from inside the Trump orbit and directly conflicts with the administration’s public claims about the Epstein files. Describing Epstein as “gross,” Lutnick told Divine about the first time he claims to have visited his neighbor’s home. “I say to him, ‘Massage table in the middle of your house? How often do you have a massage?’” Lutnick recalled. “And he says, ‘Every day.’ And then he gets, like, weirdly close to me, and he says, ‘And the right kind of massage.’” 

That’s when Epstein revealed his hand, Lutnick claimed. “‘They get a massage,’ that’s what his M.O. was,” the secretary said of Epstein’s approach to his associates. “‘Get a massage, get a massage,’ and what happened in that massage room, I assume, was on video.”

“So what happened to those videos? Why is there now such a dearth of information when, you know, Donald Trump’s people are running the FBI and the DOJ?” Devine asked.

“I assume, way back when, they traded those videos in exchange for him getting that 18-month sentence, which allowed him to have visits and be out of jail. I mean, he’s a serial sex offender. How could he get 18 months and be able to go to his office during the day and have visitors and stuff? There must have been a trade,” Lutnick speculated, referencing Epstein’s sentence after his 2008 sweetheart plea deal in Florida. (The prosecutor who offered Epstein that secret plea deal, Alex Acosta, was eventually named as Trump’s first term labor secretary.) As the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week, the nation’s largest financial institutions kept ties with Epstein until the end. 

Since the most recent Epstein firestorm erupted in July, Trump appears to have tried all manner of distractions and diversions to keep the latest revelations off the front pages. The administration has militarized Washington, D.C., and launched operations in blue cities including Memphis, Portland and Chicago. Trump has attacked free speech in the wake of MAGA activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination and pressured his Justice Department to go after his political enemies. Now, his own commerce secretary has upended the administration’s strategy of evasion, which has at times been quite effective, by naming the elephant in the room — or, in this case, on the National Mall. (His comments came the day before an art installation originally titled “Best Friends Forever” reappeared on the National Mall after it was removed last week. The statue, now renamed “Why Can’t We Be Friends?,” depicts Trump and Epstein clasping hands and skipping merrily.)

Lutnick’s remarks make it clear that the scandal, despite being overshadowed in recent weeks by Kirk’s murder and international events, is still on the minds of many on the right. Sixty-seven percent of Republicans support releasing all the Epstein files, according to the new PBS poll. Although Devine declared the Epstein furore to be “overblown” in July, she nonetheless felt the subject to be sufficiently worthy of coverage more than two months later as to warrant confronting the commerce secretary about it in an interview.

Lutnick made “a complete unforced error” with his revelation, Wired Magazine’s Jake LaHut told NBC News. As a sitting Cabinet official and former neighbor of Epstein, the secretary’s story places him at odds with the public posture of DOJ and FBI officials. It seemingly backs up Attorney General Pam Bondi’s initial claim of an “Epstein client list,” while simultaneously undermining FBI Director Kash Patel’s conflicting testimony that no credible evidence of blackmail or a client list exists. 

---

Want more sharp takes on politics? Sign up for our free newsletter, Standing Room Only, written by Amanda Marcotte, now also a weekly show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

---

During a tense Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Sept. 16, Patel testified that his agency had “no credible information” to suggest Epstein trafficked girls to friends or associates. But as Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., noted during that hearing, when U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche interviewed longtime Epstein collaborator Ghislaine Maxwell in July, a transcript shows she said some of the “cast of characters” who surrounded Epstein are now “in [Trump’s] Cabinet.” Blanche, who used to be President Trump’s personal attorney, failed to follow up. And the White House has walked back at least one earlier claim that Trump had nothing to do with Epstein files, with an administration official recently acknowledging that Trump’s name appears in the Epstein files, but admitting no wrongdoing. Trump himself said he had a falling out with Epstein because he “stole” Virginia Giuffre from his Mar-a-Lago spa when she worked there as a teenager. It was Maxwell who offered Giuffre a job as Epstein’s masseuse, which led to years of sexual abuse.

Lutnick’s comments appear to be creating tension in the White House, Aswain Suebsaeng reported for Zeteo: 

“That f**king dumba*s,” one of the senior Trump administration officials told Zeteo on Wednesday, after seeing a clip of Lutnick riffing on Epstein. “I’ve worked with him and can tell you he doesn’t think he did anything negative…That’s not how he thinks. He just talks and talks, and doesn’t care what unhelpful bullshit comes out.”

But Lutnick was careful in one area. When asked by Devine what Trump himself made of his experience with Epstein, the secretary quickly changed the subject. Still, his podcast appearance was enough to pique the interest of congressional leaders. 

“We know there are a lot of people [who] have information within the administration that could be helpful to our investigation,” Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., a top member of the House Oversight Committee, told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Wednesday. “We need to have Howard Lutnick in front of the committee,” Garcia said, adding that he would “100%” support a subpoena for Lutnick. The call to subpoena Lutnick was echoed on Thursday on MSNBC by Schiff. 

The secretary’s remarks come at a critical time for Trump. The House of Representatives is one vote away from the release of the Epstein files. House Speaker Mike Johnson, however, is receiving criticism for seemingly slowwalking the swearing-in of recently elected Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva of Arizona, who has pledged to provide the decisive final vote. 

It’s unclear how long the government shutdown will last, and with the House in recess for another week, it will likely be awhile before any action will be taken. But Lutnick’s comments — and Devine’s interest — make it clear the scandal of Trump’s Epstein connections won’t be going away any time soon.