Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, in a notable break with the Division of Justice, claimed late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was “the best blackmailer ever” — and will have traded the feds video of his wealthy and well-connected associates getting massages from younger ladies in alternate for a controversial 2008 plea deal.
Lutnick made the surprising allegations to The Publish’s Miranda Devine on the newest episode of “Pod Power One,” out now.
The 64-year-old cupboard secretary mentioned that Epstein himself confirmed off his infamous “therapeutic massage room” whereas giving Lutnick and his spouse a tour of the notorious East 71st Road townhouse after the couple moved in subsequent door to the since-disgraced financier in 2005.
“I say to him, ‘Therapeutic massage desk in the midst of your home? How usually do you’ve got a therapeutic massage?’” Lutnick recalled. “And he says, ‘Each day.’ After which he will get, like weirdly near me, and he says, ‘And the correct of therapeutic massage.’”
Lutnick mentioned he and his spouse shortly excused themselves and left Epstein’s residence, “and within the six to eight steps it takes to get from his home to my home, my spouse and I made a decision that I’ll by no means be within the room with that disgusting particular person ever once more.”
When requested by Devine whether or not Epstein’s wealthy and highly effective associates — together with the likes of Prince Andrew and Microsoft founder Invoice Gates — “might cling round him and never see what you noticed, or did they see it and ignore it,” Lutnick responded, “they participated.”
“They get a therapeutic massage, that’s what his MO was. ‘Get a therapeutic massage, get a therapeutic massage,’ and what occurred in that therapeutic massage room, I assume, was on video,” the commerce secretary went on. “This man was the best blackmailer ever, blackmailed folks. That’s how he had cash.”
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A spokesperson for Invoice Gates instructed The Publish in a press release: “That is completely false. Gates met with Epstein to debate philanthropy and nothing else.”
Lutnick added: “I assume approach again after they traded these movies in alternate for him getting that 18-month sentence, which allowed him to have visits and be out of jail. I imply, he’s a serial intercourse offender. How might he get 18 months and be capable of go to his workplace throughout the day and have guests and stuff? There will need to have been a commerce.
“So, my assumption, I’ve no data, however my assumption is there was a commerce for the movies, as a result of there have been folks on these movies,” he additionally claimed.
The DOJ and FBI launched a memo July 6 claiming a scientific evaluation had discovered that Epstein held no “shopper record” of wealthy and highly effective associates.
The memo additionally acknowledged there was “no credible proof discovered that Epstein blackmailed distinguished people as a part of his actions” and no “proof that might predicate an investigation towards uncharged third events” — regardless of Epstein having “harmed over one thousand victims.”
Epstein, 66, was discovered useless in his Manhattan lockup on Aug. 10, 2019, whereas awaiting federal trial on intercourse trafficking prices.
Greater than a decade prior, he had been pressured in 2008 to register as a intercourse offender and plead responsible to Florida prices of soliciting prostitution and soliciting a minor for intercourse as a part of an settlement that noticed him serve not more than 13 months confinement, most of it on work launch.
Epstein quietly paid ladies lots of of {dollars} to provide him massages in his Florida residence, although none who spoke with legislation enforcement mentioned that there have been video recordings fabricated from the encounters, in response to a 2020 DOJ Workplace of Skilled Duty report on the prosecution.
The South Florida US Lawyer’s Workplace, headed up then by Alex Acosta, had reached a non-prosecution settlement with Epstein because of evidentiary points with a purpose to drive the financier to cop to state prices. Acosta has since expressed regret about how its phrases weren’t adopted.
“The Palm Seashore State Lawyer’s initially proposed decision — no jail time or intercourse offender registration — was unacceptable to Mr. Acosta and his staff,” mentioned legal professional Jeffrey Neiman, who represented the ex-Miami prosecutor earlier than a Home panel grilling earlier this month.
“Mr. Acosta took accountability for approving the ultimate decision, admitting that counting on the state system was a mistake,” Neiman added, saying Epstein’s sentencing and intercourse offender registry despatched “a message to the group that Epstein’s conduct was unacceptable.”
Two years in the past, a photograph allegedly taken by Epstein confirmed himself and Gates on the Microsoft founder’s Seattle workplace in March 2014 — six years after he registered as a intercourse offender and went to jail.
Gates met Epstein for the primary time nose to nose at dinner within the latter’s Manhattan townhouse in January 2011, in response to The New York Instances.
President Trump loved a detailed affiliation with Epstein within the Nineties and early 2000s, however revealed earlier this yr he had booted Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago membership after discovering out that the pervert was recruiting masseuses from the spa to work for his lecherous ends.
“Individuals have been taken out of the spa, employed by him,” Trump instructed reporters aboard Air Power One July 29. “Once I heard about it, I instructed him, I mentioned, ‘Hear, we don’t need you taking our folks,’ whether or not it was spa or not spa, I don’t need him taking folks. And he was fantastic. After which not too lengthy after that, he did it once more. And I mentioned, ‘Out of right here.’”
