Trump commerce secretary Howard Lutnick arranged to visit Epstein island, files show

Howard Lutnick, currently serving as Trump’s US secretary of commerce, arranged to visit Jeffrey Epstein’s island in 2012, according to Epstein-related files released by the Department of Justice on Friday.According to the newly released documents, on 20 November 2012, Epstein’s longtime assistant emailed Lutnick saying that “Jeffrey Epstein understands you will be down in St Thomas some over the holidays” and that “Jeffrey requested I please pass along some phone numbers to you so the two of you can possibly get together.”On 19 December 2012, Lutnick sent an email to “Jeff” telling him that that he and several others, including his wife, children and some friends and their children, were visiting the Caribbean and were on Lutnick’s boat.“We are landing in St Thomas early Saturday afternoon and planning to head over to St Bart’s/Anguilla on Monday at some point” Lutnick wrote. “Where are you located (what is exact location for my captain)?? Does Sunday evening for dinner sound good?”An individual whose name is redacted replied: “Below from Jeffrey: come sat or sunday lunch? little st james on the map, behind christmans cove.”The documents appear to suggest that a meeting took place, as on 24 December, Epstein emailed his assistant with the subject line: “please forward to howard lutnik”.The email body reads: “nice seeing you, read #2 dot three.” The assistant responds “Will do!” and then forwards the message to Lutnick.On Friday, the New York Times reached Lutnick by phone and Lutnick said he could not comment about the island visit because he had not seen the latest tranche of Epstein documents.“I spent zero time with him,” Lutnick said before ending the call.Also among the newly released tranche of files related to Epstein are documents suggesting Lutnick invited Epstein to a fundraiser for Hilary Clinton in 2015.The document includes an email dated 3 November 2015 in which Epstein’s longtime assistant forwarded him an email from Lutnick, the former CEO of the financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald, with an invitation to a “very =ntimate [sic] fundraising event” for Hillary Clinton on 11 November.Per the document, Epstein’s assistant forwarded the invitation email to Epstein that same day.It is unclear whether Epstein attended the event.At the time, the New York Post reported on a fundraiser that month held at Lutnick’s home, which the paper described as being “next door to Jeffrey Epstein’s house”. It is not clear if it was the same event.These new documents come after Lutnick acknowledged in a podcast interview with the New York Post’s Miranda Devine that Epstein was his neighbor, and recounted that in 2005 Epstein invited Lutnick and his wife into his home, and gave them a tour.“Big living room, and then across from it is double doors, I assume it’s the dining room, and he opens the doors and there’s a massage table in the middle of the room, and candles all around and stuff,” Lutnick said. “I say to him, ‘Massage table in the middle of your house? How often you have a massage?’ And he says, ‘Every day.’ And then he like gets, like, weirdly close to me and he says, ‘And the right kind of massage.’“Now, my wife is standing here, so she looks at me and I look at her and we say, ‘I’m sorry, we have to go,’” Lutnick continued. “And we left, and in the six or eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house, my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again. So I was never in the room with him socially, for business, or even philanthropy. If that guy was there, I wasn’t going, cause he’s gross.”The commerce department did not immediately respond to a comment request from the Guardian regarding the 2015 email.Cantor declined to comment about the 2015 fundraiser to the Guardian.