Trump’s Commerce Secretary and Jeffrey Epstein’s former neighbor Howard Lutnick revealed on a podcast Wednesday that he believes the sex trafficker and abuser used blackmail videos of high-profile clients to swing the “sweetheart deal” he received in 2008.
Lutnick called Epstein “gross” and the “the greatest blackmailer ever,” when describing a visit to his Manhattan apartment, only steps from his own home.
“I assume, way back when, they traded those videos in exchange for him getting that 18-month sentence, which allowed him to have visits and be out of jail. I mean, he’s a serial sex offender. How could he get 18 months and be able to go to his office during the day and have visitors and stuff? There must have been a trade.”
Of course, this would contradict what FBI Director K$sh Patel has told Congress when asked to whom Epstein trafficked young women: “Himself. There is no credible information. None. If there were, I would bring the case yesterday that he trafficked to other individuals.”
Indeed, victims’ lawyer Brad Edwards has stated that Epstein was primarily his own best client, and a very small percentage of victims were shared with other men.
“It’s all been a big hoax,” Trump told reporters in July. “It’s perpetrated by the Democrats and some stupid Republicans, and foolish Republicans fall into the net. And so they try and do the Democrats’ work.”