Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday that he visited Jeffrey Epstein's Little Saint James Island in late 2012 and had lunch there — four years after Epstein pled guilty to procuring a minor for prostitution, and seven years after Lutnick claimed he swore off all contact with the man.

As reported by The Daily Wire, the admission directly contradicts the narrative Lutnick built in a New York Post interview last year, when he told journalist Miranda Devine that after a 2005 encounter at Epstein's New York home, he was done.

"In the six or eight steps that 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 because he's gross."

Never is a short word with no wiggle room. And yet, in 2012, Lutnick was on the island.

What Lutnick told the Senate

Pressed by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who cited email correspondence from recently released DOJ Epstein files, Lutnick confirmed the visit but framed it as innocuous — a brief stop during a family vacation.

"I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going across, I was on a family vacation. My wife was with me as were my four children and nannies. I had another couple — they were there as well with their children — and we had lunch on the island. That is true, for an hour, and then we left with all of my children, with my nannies and my wife all together."

He said he saw nothing inappropriate during the visit. He said it would be false to suggest there was anything untoward about it. He also said he doesn't remember why he did it.

That last part deserves emphasis. A man who described Epstein in vivid, visceral terms — "disgusting," "gross" — who said the decision to cut him off took six to eight steps, who made the vow sound instinctive and absolute, somehow ended up having lunch on the man's private island and can't recall what brought him there.

The timeline doesn't help

In 2005, Lutnick moved into a house next door to Epstein in New York. Epstein gave Lutnick and his wife a tour of his home, during which he pointed out a massage table and made remarks about getting the "right kind of massage." Lutnick says that moment triggered the permanent break.

In 2008, Epstein pled guilty to procuring a minor for prostitution. Whatever ambiguity might have existed about Epstein's character before that plea vanished with it.

By 2011, documents from the DOJ file release appear to show Lutnick's Wall Street firm emailing Epstein in hopes of arranging a meeting. Whether that meeting took place remains unclear.

By late 2012, Lutnick was eating lunch on Little Saint James with his family.

Lutnick told the subcommittee he conducted his own search of the Epstein files and found his name in approximately 10 emails among the millions of pages released by the Justice Department. He said he would be willing to share his Epstein-related records with Congress.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department offered a statement to The Daily Wire that acknowledged more contact than Lutnick's original story suggested:

"Mr. and Mrs. Lutnick met Jeffrey Epstein in 2005 and had very limited interactions with him over the next 14 years."

"Very limited interactions" over 14 years is a different claim than "never in the room with him again." The Commerce Department's own language quietly concedes the point.

The political fallout

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, wasted no time:

"It's now clear that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has been lying about his relationship with Epstein. He said he had no interactions with Epstein after 2005, yet we now know they were in business together. Lutnick must resign or be fired. And he must answer our questions."

Garcia's claim that Lutnick and Epstein "were in business together" goes beyond what the available evidence supports — the 2011 email from Lutnick's firm seeking a meeting is suggestive but not proof of a business relationship. Democrats rarely let evidentiary gaps slow them down when a Trump cabinet member is in the crosshairs.

But the pressure isn't only coming from the left. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) called on Lutnick over the weekend to resign, arguing he should make life easier on the president.

The White House, for its part, stood by Lutnick. Spokesman Kush Desai told The Daily Wire on Tuesday:

"President Trump has assembled the best and most transformative cabinet in modern history. The entire Trump administration, including Secretary Lutnick and the Department of Commerce, remains focused on delivering for the American people."

The real problem

Conservatives who care about accountability — and who cheered the release of the Epstein files precisely because they expected sunlight to reach every corner — cannot simply wave this away because Lutnick has an (R) next to his name. The principle was never partisan. The entire point of demanding the files' release was that the truth matters more than protecting powerful people.

The issue isn't that Lutnick had lunch on an island. Lots of wealthy people moved in Epstein's orbit before the full scope of his crimes became public knowledge. The issue is the gap between what Lutnick said and what Lutnick did. He didn't offer a measured, complicated account of gradually distancing himself from a bad actor. He told a story of instant, total revulsion — and that story now has a hole in it the size of a Caribbean island.

If Lutnick can explain the contradiction persuasively, he should. His stated willingness to share records with Congress is the right instinct. But "I don't remember why we did it" is not the kind of answer that closes questions. It opens them.

The Epstein saga has already exposed how many powerful figures across politics, finance, and media enjoyed proximity to a convicted predator and then developed amnesia about it. Lutnick's story fits a pattern that conservatives have rightly condemned for years — powerful men offering shifting accounts calibrated to whatever facts have surfaced that week.

The standard doesn't change because the person under scrutiny is on your team. Either the truth matters, or it doesn't.