The US Department of Justice (DOJ) reportedly removed a photo of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick from its website on Thursday (local time). The photo was released in January when the Justice Department released millions of documents related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, The Daily Beast reported.
The footage, which appears to show Lutnick alongside Epstein and three other men on Little Saint James, the disgraced financier’s private Caribbean island, is from 2012, which Lutnick has previously confirmed. The photo reportedly appeared when Epstein files were downloaded from a cache, but was later removed from the official archive.
The image was uploaded to Jmail, a browser-based platform that allows users to browse Epstein-related documents in a format similar to a Gmail inbox. A link to the image was posted in its ‘jmailarchive’ section, showing what appears to be a DOJ file labeled ‘EFTA01230639’.
However, when this file name was searched in the Justice Department’s official database of Epstein documents, no matching record was found, suggesting that the file may have been deleted or deleted.
Read also | Lutnick’s bombshell revelation of Jeffrey Epstein: “The Biggest Blackmailer”
A Justice Department official did not dispute that Lutnick was present in the image, but added: “This image was part of a batch of files that were flagged for nudity. The batch of thousands of images has been downloaded for review and is being uploaded continuously with necessary edits. No files are being deleted.”
However, according to a report in the Independent, the link appeared to have resurfaced. But when Mint tried to search, the same file name appeared to be missing from the documents released by the Justice Department.
Lutnick-Epstein ties
Lutnick, 64, has previously been caught lying about his association with Epstein. In an interview with Make America Great Again (MAGA) podcasts last year, he claimed to have met Epstein only once, in 2005, after he and his wife moved in next door. According to a report in the Independent, the trade secretary recalled moving in next door to a convicted sex offender, being invited in for coffee, seeing a massage table and promptly severing his ties.
Read also | How JPMorgan bankers stayed close to Epstein after the bank dropped him as a client
But files released by the Justice Department showed that Lutnick and Epstein corresponded by email years after Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution.
Some of the emails exchanged included messages to arrange calls and lunches, including on the pedophile island playground where the victims said they were sexually abused. However, it is worth noting that the mere mention of a person does not ensure any wrongdoing, which seems to be the case with Lutnick.
Trump’s favorite businessman in trouble?
US President Donald Trump’s commerce secretary, who is his favorite businessman, is facing renewed scrutiny over his ties to Epstein, with many Democrats calling for his resignation. On Thursday, Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., appeared on X and asked Lutnick how many visits he had made to Epstein’s rape island.
Read also | Did Bondi spy on Democrats’ search history in Epstein’s unresponsive files?
Reports indicate that Trump recently confronted Lutnick about his family profiting so aggressively from his popularity during an episode at Mar-a-Lago over the winter holidays, Politico reported.
The Politico report also suggests that Lutnick also angers employees in other departments who have labeled him a threat. Staff face strict communication controls. According to the official, no one is allowed to deal with other agencies without Lutnick’s direct permission. While the advisers attend the White House meetings, they are instructed not to express any political position and to say only that they have no authorized position from the secretary and that the Commerce Department has nothing to add.
Another official described a confrontational management style. If Lutnick opposes a position during meetings or senses even a carefully worded disagreement, he tends to raise his voice and speak over others, the person said, recalling a particularly tense trade policy exchange last year.
