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The Epstein Chronicles
Howard Lutnick And The Transcript From His Epstein Related Congressional Hearing (Part 3) (5/14/26)
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The transcripts from Howard Lutnick’s closed-door appearance before Congress painted a picture of a witness trying to minimize both the depth and duration of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein while lawmakers confronted him with records suggesting...
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Now with McDonald's, a McDouble is only 250. So you can get your gym games on or just get lunch for only 250. Get more value on the under three dollar menu. Limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher for delivery. What's up everyone? And welcome to another episode of the Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're getting right back to the Howard Lutnick transcripts from his interview with with Congress, Mr. Emmer. Question Did Mr. Epstein ever fly on one of our of one of your private planes? Answer no. Question did you ever fly with Mr. Epstein on any aircraft? Answer no. I had no other personal interaction with them, just the three, so I'm happy to say no. But they're by definition no, since I had no personal interaction with them. To the best of your recollection, when was the last time you communicated with Mr. Epstein? It's the one email exchange in 2018, and that's the only one that I know of, actually. Thank you, Secretary. The committee is also investigating Maxwell. Do you know Ghislaine Maxwell from the newspapers? Have you ever met Ghislaine Maxwell? I met her once. Question can you explain to me and the committee when you met her? Answer to the best of my recollection, I met her once. It was at a Rockefeller Institute fundraiser in New York City. Question and what was the nature of your conversation with Ms. Maxwell to the best of your recollection? Answer meaningless, inconsequential. Mr. Grant pops in. Do you know roughly what year this meeting would have occurred last? Lutnick I do not. SPECTRE asks a question now, did you know her to be affiliated with Jeffrey Epstein when you met her? Lutnick? No. Question by Mr. Emmer, who else was present when you met her? Answer well, it was a charity fundraiser for Rockefeller Institute, which is the premier medical research institute in New York, which is adjacent to New York Hospital. Thank you, secretary Lutnick. In 2005, place police in Palm Beach, Florida began investigating Epstein. In July of 2006, Epstein was arrested for the first time for soliciting prostitution for minors. When did you first learn of Jeffrey Epstein's 2006 arrest? Answer I don't recall whether, when or whether I knew that. So I just had no recollection whether I knew that or not. Spectre Mr. Epstein reportedly had to register as a sex offender after he was convicted of that 2006 offense. Were you ever notified by way of him being your neighbor, were you ever notified about his status? Secretary Lutnick? No. Spectre did you have children under the age of 18 during that time? Lutnick yeah. Emmer and to be clear, did you ever have any reason to suspect Mr. Epstein was sexually abusing young women and girls? Answer no question. Did you did anyone around you ever discuss Mr. Epstein's arrest in Florida? Answer not that I can remember. Secretary Lutnick, you touched on this in your opening statement, but to be clear, you visited Little St. James Epstein's island in December of 2012, is that right? Answer in around, just before Christmas 2012, I visited the island for lunch with my wife, my children, my friends, my friend, his wife, their children and my staff for an hour. I did. I'm not sure I knew the name of it either. If I said that your Visit was on December 23rd of 2012, would you dispute that statement? I would not. Emer at this time, I would like to introduce as Majority Exhibit 1. This is EFTA 215-1530 and I'll give you a moment to review question so I'll read it into the record. This is an email from Tuesday, November 20th of 2012 sent by Leslie Groff. The subject line reads Jeffrey Epstein. The email reads, hello, Mr. Lutnick, Jeffrey Epstein understands that you'll be down in St. Thomas over the holidays. Jeffrey requested I please pass along some phone numbers to you so the two of you could possibly get together. Any numbers you wanted to pass along to Jeffrey would be great as well. I will say it appears that you are the recipient of this email. Do you recall receiving may be helpful for you to understand that if the email says Howard Lutnick or Lutnick Howard, those went to Matthew Gilbert. They didn't go to me. They were not, meaning I would not, I would never see them. They went to Matthew Gilbert. You know, if they went to me, if they're listed as HWL and because I received hundreds of emails, sometimes thousands, and they went to Matthew Gilbert and I would not see them, so these would have gone to him and I would not have seen them. Question I understand and for the record, that's why Matthew Gilbert would have been the individual who responded to this email. Is that right? Answer. I mean, he would respond sometimes in his name, but he would also respond sometimes to the same email in my name. Question and you discuss the invite in your opening statement. But I'm going to ask you again, how did your Visit to Little St. James come about? Who coordinated it? Answer what I still cannot Understand is this, November 20th, how or why without any communication for years, would he Inexplicably know where I'm going. It's unsettling, actually, but this is how it happened. You know, I don't know why it happened, but this is. You're actually literally seeing it how it happened. But it's inexplicable that he would and his staff would know where I was going to be. I had no interactions with him. Question. So to be clear, you didn't reach out yourself to tell Mr. Epstein that you were going to be in the US Virgin Islands over Christmas, is that right? Answer. Yes. Yes, that is correct. I did not in any way contact or have any connection to him. Question. And it would be safe to say that the invite surprised you? I. I find it unsettling and inexplicable. Question. Who else was involved in coordinating the trip to the island? I have no recollection, so I can't give you more information. I just have no recollection of it. Question. During our review of the documents that have been released, it appeared that your wife may have been in contact with Mr. Epstein's team. Did she ever say anything to you about the island visit? Not that I can recall now, no. Spectre, do you know if anyone on your staff or anyone else close to you had a connection with Mr. Epstein or his staff? I'm just trying to understand how he may have been aware of your travels. Lutnik. Me too. I find it inexplicable and unsettling and just reading this, sort of, it's bothersome. So, no, I don't know. Emmer. So you arrive on the island on December 23rd to the best of your recollection. Can you describe the events, what happened when you arrived on the island? Let. Nick. Sure. So it's 14 years ago. I went for lunch with my wife, my four children, my friends, a couple with their four children and staff and boat staff. So it was probably 15 or 16 people went for lunch. We sat outside, had lunch. It was boring. We left. SPECTRE did this friend in their family that was with you have any prior connection with Mr. Epstein, or are they there as your guests and for your visit to your neighbor? Lutnick? They were there as my guests, but I don't know. And I've never heard that they had any contact with them whatsoever. Spectre. Prior or subsequent to the visit? Lutnick. Prior and subsequent. Spectre. Thank you. Question by Emmer. Mr. Epstein didn't offer you a tour of the island while you were there? Answer no, other than we walked, I think, like, from where we had Lunch there was like this. To the best of my recollection, it was like a cliff. So we went to sort of look at the water. Question. What was the nature of your conversation with Mr. Epstein during the visit? Answer. Meaningless and inconsequential. I was with my wife and my children and my friends. I another couple and their children. It was a big crowd and we had lunch and we left. Question. Besides the group that you arrived with, who else was present on the island? Just staff, you know, we were outside under sort of a cover. Outside area. That was it. Did you see any young women or girls on the island? No. Question. And I asked this in the context of the New York townhome, but did you notice any weird or unusual artwork when you visited the island? No, I wasn't inside any building. I don't recall being inside any building. And you never visited the island again, is that right? That's correct. Never. Did you ever hear rumors about the island? Obviously now it has the nickname Pedophile Island. Nothing of that sort prior to or around the time you visited? No, of course not. In 2019, we all learned lots of information, but nothing before then. There's a photo that was released, I believe, in the Epstein File Transparency act and has been reported. Are you aware of the photo of you on the island? Yes. And that was. Or what you are describing of looking over the cliff, would it be safe to assume that was when the photo was taken? Yes, it's entirely confirmatory. That photo, had you seen that photo before it was released by the Department of Justice? Lutnick. No question. By Spectre. Did you know it existed? Lutnick? No. Mr. Emmer, at this time I would like to introduce majority exhibit. And these are photos that were released by the Department of Justice as part of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Lutnick. Majority exhibit number two was. Was marked for identification. Emmer. Question. And for the record, these are images showing multiple mass of different male faces hanging on the walls of a room at Mr. Epstein's island. With a dentist chair in the middle of the room. Secretary Lutnick, when you visited Epstein's island, did you see or enter this room? No question. Have you seen pictures of the mass before? No question. The reason that we introduced this is many people online have speculated that one of the masks resembles you. Specifically the one on the first page in the middle. What's your response to these claims? You gotta be kidding me. That's the most ridiculous and absurd thing I've ever heard. What a bald man. I have hair. Look, I mean, I don't have many, but at least I have some. That is not remotely me. That's nonsense. Thank you. During your visit to the island, did you discuss the company adfin Solutions with Mr. Epstein? No. What was Admin Solutions? It was a company that attempted to create an exchange for online ads. They went out of business. Were you personally an investor in Admin Solutions? No. Question. Was Cantor Fitzgerald an investor? An Admin Solutions? Answer yes to this, Mr. Twirlinger jumps in. Mr. Emmer, just so the record's clear, I believe there's different redacted. We can't hear over here. Kurwilger. Sure. Just so the record's clear, Mr. Emmer, I think you may want to ask which part of Canter Fitzgerald there's multiple subsidiaries. Or the secretary could offer a little bit more information. Which part of Cantor was an investor? Emmer, which part of Cantor Fitzgerald was an investor? Answer. Kenner Fitzgerald has a subsidiary that did venture capital investing with small investments in many companies in sort of high risk investments. And then those would then have subsidiary companies that might be for each particular investment. It was called Cantor Ventures and so the company would be called cv. So Cantor Ventures would be cv, but it was a venture capital arm of Cantor Fitzgerald. So. So sort of multiple layers down the subsidiary chain. Question and the reason that we ask is there was a stock purchase agreement that was released as part of the Epstein File Transparency act that you signed on behalf of CVAFH and Mr. Epstein signed. Did you know that Mr. Epstein was an investor in this company, Admin? No. Question. When did you learn that he was an investor? Answer to the best of my knowledge, when these documents were released. Best of my recollection. Question and would you have been aware of all the investors, whether they were individuals or entities in any of Kenner Fitzgerald's portfolios? Answer no. Of venture capital investments? No. Question. And for the record, had you and Mr. Epstein ever invested in the same company prior to this occurrence? Answer no, not that I know of. Mr. Grant jumps in the signatory page from the investment Advent Solutions. You said you had not seen or I'm sorry, that you. Let me rephrase. It's common for another investor in a VC deal to have the page from another investor. Ludnick know. I found it inexplicable and unsettling that he had that it was released that my company's signature page would be in someone else's files. It's unsettling. Emmer. And when a stock purchase agreement is executed and the individuals are signing they're typically not in the same room. Is that right, Lutnick? That is correct, Mr. Grant. And do you have any idea of how Mr. Epstein would have come across that page from Lutnick? No. I find it inexplicable and unsettling. Mr. Emmer, at this time I'd like to introduce Majority Exhibit 3. And this is an email that you are not a recipient of, dated May 4, 2013, from Jeffrey Epstein to David Mitchell, discussing ADFIN and a potential meeting between you and Mr. Epstein. Mr. Secretary, do you know who David Mitchell is? Yes. How do you know him? He was the husband of one of my wife's friends. Were you in contact with him during this period of spring 2013? I may have. When did you understand his relationship to be with Jeffrey Epstein? I don't recall knowing that he had any relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. And what we're specifically interested in here, one, it says, one of the lines says, I think I'm seeing H. Lutnick later. Cool restaurant in Williamsburg. Do you recall meeting Epstein at a restaurant in Williamsburg in May of 2013? Answer? I did not. I mean, this seems to think that David Mitchell was planning on seeing me, not Mr. Epstein. But as I testified, the only times that I recall ever seeing him are the ones that we've gone through already. Mr. Emmer, at this time, I'd like to introduce Majority Exhibit 4. And this is an email chain dated May 28, 2018, between. Between Jeffrey Epstein and a redacted email labeled HWL. It's Batesmarked EFTA 1050772. Lutnick. Majority Exhibit Number 4 was marked for identification. All right, we're going to wrap up right here. And in the next episode dealing with the topic, we're going to pick up where we left off. All the information that goes with this episode can be found in the description box.