Justice Department announces release of 3 million Epstein file pages
The Justice Department announced it has released 3 million redacted pages of Epstein’s files.
President Donald Trump’s Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, said in an interview four months ago that the couple decided in 2005 that they would “never be in the same room” as the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who once lived in New York City.
But a trove of new files released by the Justice Department on January 30 shows that in 2012, the couple and their families planned to visit Mr. Epstein’s private island, Little St. James, in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
One of the emails released as part of Epstein’s files shows that Lutnick’s scheduled meeting on Epstein’s island on December 23, 2012, actually took place.
On December 24, 2012, Epstein sent an email to his assistant with the subject line, “Please forward to Howard Lutnik.”
“Nice to meet you,” it said.
The email, dated Dec. 21, 2012, from Lutnick’s wife, Alison, who currently serves on the board of the Trump Kennedy Center, asks him to arrange a visit to the island with another family member on Sunday, Dec. 23.
“This is Alison Lutnick,” an email to Epstein’s assistant Leslie Groff said, introducing Lutnick’s wife. “We are coming from Caneel Bay in the morning. We are a crowd… 2 families each with 4 children between the ages of 7 and 16! 6 boys and 2 girls. I hope it’s okay.”
She told me that her family was traveling on a yacht called “Excellence” and asked me to give her a good time to meet for lunch.
“Would 1:00 or 1:30 be a good time for lunch?” she asks.
Lutnick did not immediately respond to an email from USA TODAY seeking comment on the email.
Mr. Lutnick, the former chairman of financial giant Cantor Fitzgerald, was once Mr. Epstein’s neighbor. Luxury townhouses on the Upper East Side shared walls.
However, in a podcast interview with the New York Post’s Miranda Devine in October, the billionaire businessman called the sex offender “disgusting” and claimed he had tried to distance himself from the sex offender since first visiting Epstein’s townhouse in 2005, when he decided to distance himself from his wife.
When the couple moved into their newly renovated townhouse, Epstein invited them for coffee, he said.
After showing them around the mansion’s “large living room,” he led them to a room with double doors.
“I thought it was the dining room,” Lutnick said. “And when he opened the door, there was a massage table in the middle of the room with candles all around it.”
Ms. Lutnick said she then asked Mr. Epstein how often she would receive massages, which would require a table in the middle of the house.
“And he said, ‘Every day,'” Lutnick recalled. “Then he gets weirdly close to me, and he says, ‘And the right kind of massage.'”
Shortly after making the comment, Lutnick said he and his wife suddenly left Epstein’s residence.
Lutnick said it took him “six or eight steps” to reach his home, but the couple decided “we would never share a room with him socially, professionally, or even for charity.”
Epstein, who died by suicide in a Manhattan jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges, is accused of luring and grooming numerous victims, including underage girls, for sexual abuse. He pleaded not guilty.
“If that guy had been there, I wouldn’t have gone because he’s disgusting,” Lutnick said.
Mr. Devine asked how other prominent men would have interacted with Mr. Epstein when Mr. Lutnick was able to immediately tell that Mr. Epstein was a “pervert.”
“Did they see it and ignore it?” she asked.
“No, they participated,” Lutnick replied.
“That was his MO,” he said. “Look, I said, ‘Get a massage, get a massage.'” And I think what happened in that massage room was on video. This man was the greatest blackmailer in history. Intimidate people. So he had money. ”
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is USA TODAY’s White House correspondent. You can follow her at X @SwapnaVenugopal..
