House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) spoke to reporters ahead of Trump Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s closed-door testimony on his ties to notorious sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.

Lutnick’s past contradictory statements about his relationship with Epstein are certain to figure prominently in the questioning by members, something that Comer acknowledged.

Fox News’ chief congressional correspondent Chad Pergram noted that Lutnick “went to the island with his family with Mr. Epstein. He didn’t seem to cut off his communications with Epstein after his conviction.”

“Are those some of your questions?” asked Pergram.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are the questions. I think that’s the questions everyone would ask. I don’t know how many more questions there are. This is something that many of the members wanted to hear from Lutnick, and I’ll add he’s come in voluntarily. So I appreciate that. Hopefully, we’ll have some more answers. We haven’t talked to too many people that have admitted they’ve been on the island. My understanding is he wasn’t on the island very long. He was there with his wife and kids, but we’ll see what he says,” Comer replied.

Lutnick told The New York Post in an October 2025 podcast that after meeting Epstein with his wife in Epstein’s home, “I was never in the room with him socially, for business, or even philanthropy.” Lutnick called Epstein a “disgusting person” and said he and his wife vowed never to see him again, despite being next-door neighbors.

Subsequent document releases quickly debunked those claims and revealed not only did Lutnick and Epstein stay in touch, both socially and for business, but Lutnick went to Epstein’s infamous island with his family after Epstein’s 2008 conviction in Florida of soliciting prostitution from a minor.

“It’s pretty extraordinary to bring in a Cabinet secretary or something,” followed up Pergram.

“Yeah, and look, I’ve been on the Oversight Committee 10 years, and there’s never been a chairman bring in cabinet secretaries of their own party. We have Lutnick coming in today, we have Pam Bondi coming in in a couple of weeks, so I think people can see that this is a bipartisan investigation. And we’re really sincerely trying to get the proof. Our goal is to provide justice for the victims and hopefully today will be helpful,” Comer replied.

“Is Secretary Lutnick’s credibility undermined here for having said publicly he cut ties in 2005, and Epstein files show that, as recently as 2018, he was in email correspondence with Epstein?” asked an off-camera reporter.

“What I’ve seen—we’re going to ask him all these questions, and we’ll let the American people judge whether his credibility was damaged or not. At the end of the day, I haven’t seen wrongdoing in the email correspondence, but he wasn’t 100% truthful about whether or not he had been on the island. So we’ll see, and we will obviously release the transcripts, and everyone can see for themselves,” Comer replied.

Watch the clips above via C-SPAN.

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