Rep. Mace says she’ll call Trump Commerce chief Lutnick to testify
Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) (C) speaks during a press conference with committee members (L-R) Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI), Rep. William Timmons (R-SC) and Rep. John McGuire (R-VA) ahead of former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s closed-door deposition with the House Oversight Committee at the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center on February 27, 2026 in Chappaqua, New York.
David Dee Delgado | Getty Images
Rep. Nancy Mace on Friday said that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick should testify to the House Oversight Committee to answer questions about his association with notorious sex predator Jeffrey Epstein.
“Howard Lutnick should take questions from the Oversight committee,” Mace, R-S.C., said in an X post on Friday morning.
Mace’s tweet responded to an X post that said the Department of Justice had removed from its database of Epstein-related documents a photo of Epstein standing in front of a man who “appears to be Howard Lutnick.”
It is not known when the photo, which since has been restored to the DOJ’s public database, was taken.
A photo from the DOJ’s Epstein files database, appears to show Jeffrey Epstein and three other men. Other men in the photo appear to include Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and his friend Michael Lehrman.
Source: Epstein Files | DOJ
But it appears to include, in addition to Epstein, Lutnick and his friend Michael Lehrman, who other documents in the DOJ’s database indicated was vacationing with Lutnick and his family when they all visited Epstein for lunch on his private island in December 2012.
Lutnick has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
Mace later Friday morning told reporters, “I will be asking” Lutnick to testify to the Oversight committee.
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., separately told reporters that he believed there would be enough votes on the committee to subpoena Lutnick to testify.
The lawmakers’ comments came before that panel was set to question former President Bill Clinton in a deposition about his connections to Epstein in Chappaqua, New York.
Clinton’s wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was deposed about Epstein on Thursday. She told reporters later that she testified she did not recall ever meeting Epstein, and that she had no knowledge of his crimes.
House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., on Thursday told reporters that it is “very possible” that the panel will subpoena Lutnick to testify.
Comer has not called President Donald Trump to testify.
Trump, who had a longtime friendship with Epstein before the two men fell out in the early 2000s, has said that the recently released files on Epstein by the DOJ exonerate him of any wrongdoing.
MS Now reported earlier this week that the DOJ withheld from public disclosure memos and notes about FBI interviews, including those of a woman who has alleged that Trump sexually abused her when she was a minor.
The DOJ, in response to that and other similar…
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