NEW YORK, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick admitted Tuesday that he and his family had lunch with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on the latter's private island in 2012.
"I did have lunch with him, as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation," Lutnick said during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Tuesday. "And we had lunch on the island, that is true, for an hour."
"I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with that person," he said in his testimony.
Lutnick had previously said that he cut off contact with Epstein in 2005. But the latest Epstein files released by the U.S. Department of Justice in January showed that he and Epstein remained in touch years later. And the two men also had business dealings as recently as 2014, local media reported.
Lutnick is now under pressure from both Democrats and some Republicans to resign.
Epstein pleaded guilty to a state charge of soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2008. He was arrested again in July 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges and died by suicide in jail on Aug. 10, 2019, before trial. ■
