Dean Questions Lutnick on Epstein Ties at Hearing

In a tense exchange during a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on President Donald Trump's 2027 budget request, Democratic Representative Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania pressed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Thursday over discrepancies in his past statements about his relationship with the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Dean highlighted Lutnick's October interview with the New York Post, in which he described touring Epstein's New York home in 2005, next door to his own residence, and claimed the visit left him and his wife so repulsed that they never returned or interacted with Epstein again. However, unsealed court documents from Epstein's case revealed that Lutnick visited Epstein's private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2012, accompanied by his wife, children and nannies. That trip occurred four years after Epstein's 2008 guilty plea to charges of soliciting prostitution from a minor in Florida, for which he was designated a level-three sex offender.

Dean further noted that business records show Lutnick and Epstein signed an investment agreement for AdFin, a digital advertising company, just five days after the island visit....