{"id":19553,"date":"2026-03-03T21:03:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T21:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/lutnick-agrees-to-testify-in-house-oversights-epstein-probe\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T21:03:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T21:03:06","slug":"lutnick-agrees-to-testify-in-house-oversights-epstein-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/lutnick-agrees-to-testify-in-house-oversights-epstein-probe\/","title":{"rendered":"Lutnick agrees to testify in House Oversight\u2019s Epstein probe"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has \u201cproactively agreed to appear voluntarily\u201d before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee as part of the panel\u2019s investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Chair James Comer<\/a> announced Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI commend his demonstrated commitment to transparency and appreciate his willingness to engage with the Committee,\u201d Comer, a Kentucky Republican, said in a statement. \u201cI look forward to his testimony.\u201d<\/p>\n

A date for Lutnick\u2019s deposition is not yet known.<\/p>\n

Lutnick has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein\u2019s crimes, and he continues to have the White House\u2019s support. But he has faced calls for his resignation from Democrats after the Epstein files released by the Justice Department revealed the full extent of his relationship with the disgraced financier. Lutnick had previously suggested that he cut ties prior to Epstein\u2019s 2008 conviction for soliciting a prostitute. The Commerce secretary later conceded<\/a> the two men had lunch together following those charges. <\/p>\n

Shortly before Comer\u2019s announcement Tuesday afternoon that Lutnick would cooperate with the panel, Rep. Nancy Mace<\/a> (R-S.C.) shared her intention to force a vote to subpoena Lutnick during a House Oversight hearing scheduled for Wednesday on an unrelated topic. While committee Republicans have also expressed a desire to hear from Lutnick, his agreement to testify suggests that most GOP members would prefer to avoid having to take a politically uncomfortable vote to compel testimony from a high ranking Trump administration official \u2014 plus hand Democrats victory.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the Oversight Committee released footage<\/a> of a deposition with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, where Mace accused Lutnick of operating as a \u201cgo-between between [Hillary Clinton] and Jeffrey Epstein raising money for [her].\u201d Clinton has said her work with Lutnick was around the response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York, in which Lutnick\u2019s company lost many employees.<\/p>\n

Clinton said she never recalled meeting Epstein and has not been accused of wrongdoing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has \u201cproactively agreed to appear voluntarily\u201d before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee as part of the panel\u2019s investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Chair James Comer announced Tuesday. \u201cI commend his demonstrated commitment to transparency and appreciate his willingness to engage with the Committee,\u201d Comer, a Kentucky Republican, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19553\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}