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President Donald Trump on Thursday mentioned he didn’t find out about Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s 2012 journey to pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous personal island however then instructed a reporter he had heard about particulars oif the journey.
Talking from the Roosevelt Room throughout an occasion to announce the repeal of a longstanding local weather rule reviled by the fossil gas trade, Trump was requested if he’d been conscious of Lutnick’s journey to Little Saint James, the small a part of the U.S. Virgin Islands beforehand owned by Epstein, and whether or not he nonetheless has confidence within the former bond buying and selling government.
“No, I wasn’t conscious of it … I truly have not spoken to him about it … however from what I hear, he was there along with his spouse and youngsters,” Trump mentioned, simply days after Lutnick was pressured to confess he had traveled to the infamous locale.
He added: “I used to be by no means there — someone will sometime say that I used to be by no means there.”
Trump notably didn’t reply the second a part of the query as as to whether he has confidence in Lutnick, a longtime good friend who had pushed to change into Treasury Secretary after serving because the finance chief for the president’s 2024 marketing campaign.
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The commerce secretary has lengthy been identified to have had ties to Epstein, who was his next-door neighbor in New York at one level, years earlier than he pleaded responsible to prostitution fees in Florida as a part of a sweetheart take care of a George W Bush-era prosecutor who later turned Trump’s first Secretary of Labor throughout his first time period.
In October, he instructed the New York Submit that he’d minimize off contact with Epstein — who died in a New York jail cell whereas awaiting intercourse trafficking fees in 2019 — after a 2005 encounter that he claimed had left him so unsettled that he’d vowed to “by no means be within the room with that disgusting individual ever once more.”
However paperwork launched by the Justice Division this 12 months that have been reviewed by The Impartial present that Lutnick not solely maintained ties with Epstein as late as 2018 — the 12 months earlier than he was indicted on federal intercourse trafficking fees and lengthy after he’d frolicked in jail for state-level offenses associated to his preying on younger ladies — however even organized a go to to Epstein’s island in 2012.
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Lutnick grudgingly admitted to visiting the notorious landmass, which is a part of the U.S. Virgin Islands, on Tuesday beneath questioning from Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen.
“I did have lunch with him, as I used to be on a ship going throughout on a household trip. My spouse was with me, as have been my 4 kids and nannies,” he mentioned.
“We had lunch on the island, that’s true, for an hour, and we left with all of my kids with my nannies and my spouse … I don’t recall why we did it.”
Lutnick additionally claimed in his testimony that he “didn’t have any relationship with” Epstein and “barely had something to do with that individual.”
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Trump’s feedback about Lutnick got here simply days after White Home Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt abruptly minimize brief a briefing with reporters after being requested concerning the commerce secretary’s Epstein ties.
Leavitt was roughly 20 minutes into certainly one of her common briefings with the White Home press corps on Tuesday when a reporter requested whether or not President Donald Trump would stand behind Lutnick after his admission to the Senate Commerce Committee hours earlier.
She replied that Trump “absolutely helps” Lutnick and described him as “a vital member of President Trump’s crew.”
However as a substitute of permitting reporters to probe additional into Trump’s views on Lutnick, or ask some other additional questions, Leavitt launched right into a monologue chastising reporters for not asking about numerous constructive statistics touted by the administration on problems with significance to the president earlier than storming out together with her aides in tow.
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