Howard Lutnick

Howard William Lutnick is the U.S. Secretary of Commerce and the former chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald. For fourteen years he lived in the Manhattan townhouse next door to Jeffrey Epstein. On May 6, 2026 he sat for a voluntary transcribed interview with the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The committee released the transcript on May 13.¹² Lutnick has not been charged with any Epstein-related crime. He told investigators he had no personal or professional relationship with Epstein and that he never witnessed illegal conduct.¹

  Three completed visits

Lutnick's opening statement described three in-person encounters.

In 2005, after his family moved in, Epstein's staff invited Lutnick and his wife next door for coffee. Lutnick said Epstein made a crude remark, they cut the visit short, and he and his wife agreed he would not form a personal or professional relationship with the neighbor. During a tour that day, Lutnick said, Epstein opened a door onto a massage table and, asked how often he received massages, replied that he had them every day and "the right kind of massage."¹

In 2011, Lutnick said, Epstein's staff arranged a brief visit about scaffolding. His account is that he rang the bell during a Sunday walk, sat in the foyer with his dog, heard the request, and left.¹

The third encounter produced the most questioning. In late 2012, Epstein's staff emailed Lutnick's office after learning the family would be in the U.S. Virgin Islands over the holidays. Lutnick said he still does not know how they learned the itinerary. An email read into the record, dated November 20, 2012, said Epstein understood Lutnick would be in the islands. Lutnick testified that the invitation first sought a meeting with him alone, that his wife insisted any visit include their full traveling party, and that on or about December 23, 2012, about fifteen or sixteen people, two families and staff, had an outdoor lunch on Little St. James and left. He said he did not go inside buildings, did not see young women or girls, and never returned.¹³

  Correspondence after the lunch

Released records go beyond those three meetings. Lutnick told the committee he recalled one four-message email exchange with Epstein, which investigators tied to a May 2018 chain about AdFin Solutions. An April 4, 2011 email from Lesley Groff, Epstein's assistant, recorded a returned call. Lutnick said many messages addressed to him were handled by an assistant and that those contacts did not constitute a relationship.¹

Committee Democrats said they were unsatisfied with his inability to explain why he went to the island four years after Epstein's 2008 Florida guilty plea. Lutnick said he did not remember Epstein registering as a sex offender and would not have gone if he had known.¹⁴ He has not been accused in any charging document of participating in Epstein's crimes. The documented record is a neighbor, a completed 2012 lunch, later emails, and his denials to the committee.

See Known Associates and The 2025-2026 Releases.

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  References

  Footnotes

1. Transcribed Interview of Howard Lutnick, House Oversight Committee, May 6, 2026 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

2. Oversight Committee Releases Waitt and Lutnick Transcripts, House Oversight Committee ↩

3. Lutnick called interactions with Epstein "meaningless and inconsequential", ABC News ↩

4. Lutnick downplayed contact with Epstein in House Oversight interview, CNN ↩