Latest / The Vault: The Epstein Files / Howard Lutnick And The Transcript From His Epstein Related Congressional Hearing (Part 6) (5/17/26)

Transcript

Howard Lutnick And The Transcript From His Epstein Related Congressional Hearing (Part 6) (5/17/26) · The Vault: The Epstein Files

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
• 0:03
  Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're going to pick up
• 0:06
  where we left off with the Howard Lutnek deposition. Question Okay,
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  and then you said, quote, so I asked very insightful
• 0:13
  cutting questions. I say, to a massage table in the
• 0:16
  middle of your house, how often do you have a massage?
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  And he says every day? And then he gets like
• 0:22
  really close, like weirdly close to me, and he says,
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  and the right kind of massage. I'll stop there. Is
• 0:29
  that statement accurate to the best of your recollection? Answer? Well,
• 0:33
  on being sarcastic When I say I asked very insightful
• 0:35
  cutting questions, I'm just kidding, and it's generally right. I'm
• 0:39
  not saying it's exact precisely right, but generally, yeah, that's
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  what I recall. Question, as far as you remember, are
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  any of these detailed sort of embellishments, like do you
• 0:49
  recall him actually getting weirdly close to you? Answer? I
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  think that's right. I think that's right what I said.
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  Question All right? And then you said, now my wife
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  is standing there, so she looks at me and I
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  look at her, and we say I'm sorry, we have
• 1:02
  to go, and we left. I'll stop right there. Do
• 1:05
  you recall that happening? Answer? Well, I don't. I recall
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  a sense of that. I don't recall exactly saying those words,
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  but I certainly recall a sense of that that we
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  decided we had to go. Question do you recall a
• 1:18
  verbal exchange to the effect or more of a general sense? Answer?
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  I don't recall the precise nature of the words, a
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  general sense that we excused ourselves. Question and that's what
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  I was going to ask. Is that the sort of
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  cut off the tour early as far as you can remember? Answer? Yes.
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  Question did mister Epstein have any particular reaction to you
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  sort of abruptly excusing yourself? Answer not that I recall.
• 1:44
  Question did you give a particular reason for needing to
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  excuse yourself? Answer? I don't remember anything other than we
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  decided to excuse ourselves. Question and you said, quote and
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  in the six or eight steps it takes to get
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  from his house to my house, my wife and I
• 2:00
  that I'll never be in the room with that disgusting
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  person ever. Again, I'll stop right there. Is it true
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  that before you got back to your home you and
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  your wife decided that you would never be in the
• 2:10
  same room as mister Epstein again. Answer, I think the
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  meaning of that is right, which is what we discussed.
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  That I would not put myself in a situation with
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  him again, that I would not have a personal or
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  a professional relationship with him, and I would avoid him.
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  That was the point of the discussion. It was an
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  informal conversation that I'm recalling twenty years later, but the
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  point of it was right. Question, And so that is
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  what I'd like to do, is separate the theme or
• 2:39
  the idea from the literal accuracy of the specific words.
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  So when you say my wife and I decided that
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  I will never be in the room with that disgusting
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  person again, is it? It's not necessarily a literal decision
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  that you will never allow yourself to be in the
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  room with them. Again, It's just you don't want to
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  build a relationship with them. Is that it? Answer, I
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  would not establish a personal and professional relationship with him,
• 3:02
  and I would avoid him. So it was basically a
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  conversation with me and my wife that says avoid. We
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  came to the discussion to avoid, which I did. Question,
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  was it as far as you can remember a decision that,
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  as you described it, if I see him in a
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  room in the future, I will not be in that room.
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  Was it that level or was that an embellishment or
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  some sort of extra language answer. Remember it's a podcast
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  twenty years later that I'm trying to make a point
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  that I and I didn't. By the way, I avoided
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  having a personal and professional relationship with him. I avoided them.
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  So I think I was right. I think the point
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  of the podcast is right. What I'd said was right.
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  I avoided him, and I never put myself in a
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  situation with him again personally me as a man. He
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  had no boundaries. I avoided him. Question. Yeah, so the
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  question of what the interactions were later in the future
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  after the tour will walk through those You've done some
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  of that. I was just trying to get a really
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  clear say event of what you well called the discussion
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  being on the day of the tour. It sounds like,
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  but please you tell me, was it It's not that
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  it was a literal decision to never be in the
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  same physical room again, because that's what the words say.
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  But I think you're saying it's not literally accurate answer.
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  It was a podcast, and I said in the next words,
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  that's my story. So it was a podcast I was
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  describing twenty years later a conversation I had with my wife.
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  It was informal. It wasn't trying to be literal. It
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  was trying to tell a story and be descriptive, which
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  I thought was an accurate description, which was what I
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  would avoid establishing a professional and personal relationship with him.
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  I would avoid him, and I did. So, it says
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  I will never I wasn't. I wouldn't say it was literal,
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  meaning I was. He did tell me something in the
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  foyer while I had my dog. But the point of it,
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  I think was accurate, actually and literally the way I live,
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  which was that I did not establish a personal or
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  a professional relationship with him. I avoided him, and I
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  saw him two other times the whole in my whole
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  life to other times. That's it. So the next part says,
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  so I was never in the room with them socially
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  for business or even philanthropy. Is that statement true? Answer? Yes.
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  Question so is it your testimony that you were never
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  physically in a room with Jeffrey Epstein after the day
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  of that tour. Answer? Again, this was differentiating me so
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  that I would not put myself Howard Lutnik in a
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  position with them to be alone with them. So I
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  was with my wife with them, as I described earlier
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  today at a lunch on the island seven years later,
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  and I did listen to them tell me about scaffolding
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  in his foyer, but I was not. Those were not
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  social engagements with them by me, business engagements with them
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  by me, or philanthropic engagements with them and me as
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  a person. I think that is accurate questions. So I'm
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  focused on the single sentence, and I'll read it back quote.
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  So I was never in the room with them socially
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  for business or even philanthropy. So is it your testimony
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  that the sentence is in a literal sense accurate. Answer,
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  It's accurate as to what I meant, which is I,
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  Howard Ludnak as a man, would not be in a
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  room or a situation with him because I felt them
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  gross and inappropriate and not having boundaries that I would
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  not put myself in a room with them socially which
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  I did not, professionally in business which I did not,
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  and philanthropy which I did not. I've described in detail
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  the only two times I saw them, and they were
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  not social, they were not business, and they were not philanthropic.
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  For me, I had lunch with them with my wife
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  and family, which I have described in detail, But that
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  was not me putting myself with them, which is what
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  I said, and which is the point that I tried
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  to make. Question. And so is it that you agree
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  you were in the room with them full stop, But
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  you don't believe either of those instances you've described qualify
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  as being social or for business or for philanthropy. And
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  that's how the sentence ends up being accurate. For you answer,
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  this is me talking. The point I made was that
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  as a man, I would not put myself and that's
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  the discussion with my wife, right. It's an informal discussion
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  with my wife as we walked away from his home
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  where he said something inappropriate, and we discussed that I
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  would put myself or not put myself in a circumstance
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  with them, and I would avoid them, and so I did.
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  I avoided them. I was never Howard Lutnik. I was
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  never in the room with them socially, for business or philanthropy.
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  Alone in a situation where I could be at all
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  with a person who I found inappropriate, So that's correct.
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  It's not literally that I did not say that. I
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  was not intending to say that I was literally never
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  singularly in the room with them, including with other people
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  like my wife and my children. That's not what I
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  was saying. I was saying that I would never put
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  myself in a position that would be with him alone.
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  Why would I do that? And I said wouldn't and didn't,
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  So I thought that was accurate. Question. So from your
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  point of view, just as a reader of a very simple,
• 8:02
  straightforward sentence, I think we can agree that you were
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  in the room with Jeffrey Epstein subsequent to the tour
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  of his home. Is that right? Answer, I, without my wife,
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  was not in the room with them socially for business
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  or philanthropy. I was with them with my wife and
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  family for lunch on the island in twenty twelve, which
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  I have gone through. But I was never in social
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  situations with him, Howard Luttnik. I was never in a
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  business situation with him Howard Lutnik, and I was never
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  in a philanthropic situation with him Howard Luttnik. Ever, question, Yeah,
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  it's just you drifted a bit from the question. Is
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  it correct that you were in a room with Jeffrey
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  Epstein subsequent to the day of the tour? Answer? I'm
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  going to stick to my answer. I thought it was
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  a descriptive and accurate question. But if I could just
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  get an answer to the question itself, which is is
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  it correct that you were in a room with Jeffrey
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  Epstein in a literal sense subsequent to the day of
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  the tour of his home? Answer? Again, I have described
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  it correctly, and I'm going to stick to my answer. Question,
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  And you interpreted, if I'm hearing it correctly, you interpreted
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  the word I in this statement to mean you alone?
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  Is that right? Answer? It's more than interpreted. I'm the
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  one who said it. I'm telling you what I meant.
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  I'm telling you what I meant, and that's what I said.
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  Which is that? And I've already described it? Question? But
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  is it right that you intended to convey As far
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  as you can recall from the interview last year, you
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  intended to convey the word I that you were speaking
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  only about yourself individually, not in the context of anybody
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  other than you and Epstein being in the room. When
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  you said I, you just meant I secretary Lutnik alone
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  was never in the room with Epstein. Answer, I think
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  that's generally right. I'm talking to my wife and formally
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  as we leave, and we were discussing me, and that's
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  the only person we were discussing is me, and that
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  I would avoid And I did question do you and
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  you may have touched on this apologies if you did
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  the island visit. I think you characterize that as not social.
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  Did I hear that correctly? Answer? No? Question would you
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  characterize the island visit as social? Answer? I would describe
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  a lunch with my wife and my family and the
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  other couple in their family. Yeah, I would describe that
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  as a social lunch, meaningless and inconsequential social lunch. I agree.
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  Question Okay, so then is it correct to say that
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  you were in a room with Jeffrey Epstein socially? But
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  from what I hear you testifying because there were other
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  people present, this statement from the interview was still accurate. Answer.
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  The statement was accurate because as the person who said it,
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  in describing the conversation an informal conversation I had with
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  my wife, I was describing that I would not be
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  in the room with them socially, and I would not
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  put myself in a position, which I never was. You
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  are describing something entirely different than what I was expressing,
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  which is a conversation with my wife where she and
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  I discussed that I would not put myself in there.
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  That's why I said. I didn't say we. It would
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  have been easy for me to say we. I said,
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  as I was discussing with my wife, I would not.
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  So that's the difference. I think I am. I was accurate.
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  I think I described it accurately. I don't want it
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  to be modified in any way. It was I would
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  not be in the room with them socially which I
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  was not, for business, which I was not, or philanthropic,
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  which I was not. So I believe what I said
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  was accurate. I believe what I said was accurate when
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  I said it, and I believe it now. So I
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  didn't say we would never I said I would never question.
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  Thank you. All right, we're gonna wrap up right here,
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  and in the next episode dealing with the topic, we're
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  gonna pick up where we left off. All the information
• 11:43
  that goes with this episode can be found in the
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  description box.