The Jeffrey Epstein files were always likely to expose other people engaged in something nefarious — particularly those who were around Epstein at the pinnacle of his influence. Many expected fellow sexual harassers to be exposed; and very few expected it might actually end with members of the Donald Trump administration being caught in a lie.
Secretary Howard Lutnick once claimed that he hadn’t been around Epstein since 2005, but the files suggest that in 2012 he visited him with his wife and children. The current U.S. Secretary of Commerce was asked in a 2025 interview with the New York Post about his relationship with Epstein, and he gave an impassioned response that some online are now retrospectively describing as “virtue signaling.”
