Trump would ‘fire’ Howard Lutnick if he saw video of testimony, say oversight Democrats
Following closed-door testimony from Howard Lutnick before the House oversight committee on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, Democrats called the commerce secretary’s performance “embarrassing”.
“If Donald Trump had seen the video transcript, he would have fired Howard Lutnick,” said congressman Ro Khanna, a progressive Democrat from California.
Lawmakers pointed to alleged inconsistencies between Lutnick’s previous comments on podcasts that he stopped associating with the late sex offender after 2005.
The justice department’s release of case files showed that Lutnick had two engagements with Epstein years past that. He attended a 2011 event at Epstein’s home. And Lutnick’s family had lunch with Epstein on his private island in 2012 – four years after Epstein was sentenced to 13 months in jail for procuring a minor for prostitution.
Lutnick admitted to the 2012 lunch during his 10 February testimony before the Senate appropriations committee. “I did have lunch with him, as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation,” Lutnick said. In that testimony, Lutnick also insisted that he “barely had anything to do” with Epstein.
According to Suhas Subramanyam, a Democratic representative of Virginia, the commerce secretary said “he could remember nothing about the visit to the island. Couldn’t remember why he was there. Couldn’t remember anything he saw.”
Oversight Democrats also said that Lutnick did not answer their questions about whether he spoke with Donald Trump ahead of giving testimony before the panel today.
“I feel very comfortable saying that Howard Lutnick is a pathological liar who is enabling the most egregious cover-up in American history,” congresswoman Yassamin Ansari told reporters, while noting that the commerce secretary told lawmakers it was “inexplicable” that he visited Epstein’s private island. Lutnick described his encounters with Epstein as “meaningless and inconsequential,” Ansari added.
Key events
Patel has allegedly become enraged if bottles of bourbon go missing. Here’s more from Fitzpatrick on Patel’s ire during a March incident:
In March, Patel and his team brought at least one case of bourbon to the FBI’s training facility in Quantico, Virginia, for a “training seminar,” where Ultimate Fighting Championship athletes provided mixed-martial-arts instruction to aspiring FBI agents and senior staff. At one point at least one bottle went missing, which caused the director to “lose his mind,” according to clients of Kurt Siuzdak, a retired agent who has assisted FBI agents, including whistleblowers, with legal issues.
Siuzdak told me that multiple agents contacted him for legal guidance after Patel began threatening to polygraph and prosecute his staff over the missing bottle. “It turned into a shitshow,” Siuzdak said. Other attorneys told me they received similar calls from FBI employees regarding concerns about Patel’s bottles.
Here’s more from the Atlantic’s Sarah Fitzpatrick on several reactions to Patel’s personalized bourbon among FBI personnel:
The FBI has traditionally had a zero-tolerance approach to unauthorized use of alcohol on the job and for its misuse while off duty. But that standard is bending under Patel’s leadership, one former agent told me. ‘It is so weird and uncomfortable,’ this person said.
Another former agent described the bottles as ‘demoralizing,’ because they suggest one set of standards for the director and another for the rest of the bureau. This person said he believes that many agents would worry that if the director offers you a bottle, and “you aren’t on board on receiving it enthusiastically, you are getting polygraphed for loyalty.” The fear of retribution has deterred some staff from reporting their concerns to supervisors or through channels reserved for whistleblowers.
The FBI’s director, Kash Patel, has allegedly given out customized bottles of bourbon at events, including ones where he is working in a official capacity, according to a report from the Atlantic.
The latest merch from Patel is “engraved with the words ‘Kash Patel FBI Director’ along with a makeup of the FBI shield. Patel’s name is reportedly also spelled featuring a dollar sign: Ka$h. Some pints also include Patel’s signature along with the “#9,” a nod to Patel being the ninth confirmed FBI director.
The discovery into Patel’s distillery gifts comes after a previous exposé from the Atlantic, alleging the FBI director drinks excessively and that several colleagues are concerned with his apparent erratic behavior.
Patel is currently suing the Atlantic and journalist Sarah Fitzpatrick, who wrote both pieces on Patel, for defamation.
Read the article on Patel’s party favors here (paywall).
Donald Trump will be hosting the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, for a visit, a White House source confirmed to the Guardian.
Trump and Lula, who was elected in 2023, will discuss “economic and security matters of shared importance”, the source said. The meeting is expected to take place this Thursday.
Thursday’s talks will provide further insight into the current status of US-Brazil relations, which have been contentious given tariffs imposed by Trump and the two world leaders being ideologically opposed.
In August, Trump placed a 40% tariff on Brazilian goods, a sharp increase from the previous 10% tariff. In September, Lula told the BBC that he and Trump had “no relationship” and that the tariffs were not “[communicated] in a civilised manner”.
“He just published [the tariffs] on his portal, on social media,” said Lula to the BBC.
Democratic congressman Steve Cohen, whose district would be affected by redrawing efforts, commented on the redistricting attempt earlier today, in a post on X.
This is insane. The GOP’s newly proposed TN Congressional maps would have people in Shelby County all the way to Williamson County – 200+ miles apart – being “represented” by the same Congressman. It’s a blatant, corrupt power grab that would destroy the Black community’s and our entire city’s voice.
Cohen has represented the ninth district since 2007.
Republican politicians in Tennessee have released a new congressional voting map that could go into effect before the midterm elections this November.
The proposed map would eliminate the state’s only Democratic-controlled district by carving up a majority-Black voting bloc based in Memphis that is currently represented by Democrat Steve Cohen.
The latest map comes only a week after the Supreme Court’s ruling on the use of race in congressional maps, a decision that civil rights leaders have said squashes a major component of the Voting Rights Act.
In a statement on the move, State House Speaker Cameron Sexton said:
The Supreme Court has opined that redistricting, like the judicial system, should be color-blind. The decision indicated states like Tennessee can redistrict based on partisan politics…Tennessee’s redistricting will reduce the risk of future legal challenges while promoting sound and strategic conservatism.
Read more on the ruling here.
Here’s a recap of the day so far
Following closed-door testimony from Howard Lutnick before the House oversight committee on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, Democrats called the commerce secretary’s performance “embarrassing”. “If Donald Trump had seen the video transcript, he would have fired Howard Lutnick,” said congressman Ro Khanna, a progressive Democrat from California. Lawmakers also pointed to alleged inconsistencies between Lutnick’s previous comments on podcasts that he stopped associating with the late sex offender after 2005, despite justice department files that show Lutnick had two engagements with Epstein years past that.
Earlier, James Comer, the Republican chair of oversight committee, told reporters that Lutnick had, in the past, not been “100% truthful” about whether he had ever visited Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous private island. After the closed-door testimony Comer said that commerce secretary has been “very forthcoming” with his “three” interactions with Jeffrey Epstein over the course of a decade.
Ted Turner, the founder of television news network CNN, has died at the age of 87. The cause of death was not immediately released, but Turner had revealed that he was suffering from Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disorder, in 2018. Turner became one of the most powerful figures in US media and entertainment, after he launched CNN as the first 24-hour news channel in 1980.
The FBI has launched a “criminal leak investigation” focused on Atlantic journalist Sarah Fitzpatrick, who wrote a detailed story last month about government officials’ alarm over the bureau’s director Kash Patel’s alleged “bouts of excessive drinking” and “unexplained absences”, two people familiar have told MS NOW. The move is highly unusual, given that leak investigations are usually focused on government officials – not journalists – who may have disclosed state secrets or classified information.
In the Oval Office, Donald Trump said that Iran now wants to make a deal “very badly”. He added that the situation had changed quickly. “A few days ago. It’s a long time ago in the world of war,” Trump said. He also repeated his claims that the regime’s military capabilities have been decimated, but also added that Iran has agreed to not have a nuclear weapon moving forward.
The FBI raided the office of Louise Lucas, a Virginia state senator who played a key role in the recent fight to redraw the state’s congressional maps, according to several reports. In a statement to the Guardian, the FBI only said that it was executing a “court-authorized federal search warrant” in the city which sits next to Norfolk. They added that this is an ongoing investigation with no further information publicly available at this time.
Trump says Iran wants to make a deal ‘very badly’ and has agreed to not have a nuclear weapon
In the Oval Office, Donald Trump – flanked by Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighters ahead of a 14 June fight at the White House – said that Iran now wants to make a deal “very badly”.
“A few days ago. It’s a long time ago in the world of war,” Trump said when asked about why this moment is different. He repeated his claims that the regime’s military capabilities have been decimated, but also added that Iran has agreed to not have a nuclear weapon moving forward.
The president also claimed, falsely, that Pope Leo XIV suggested that Iran should be able to create a nuclear weapon. “If that happened, the entire world would be hostage,” Trump said, repeating baseless claims that informed his admonitions of the pontiff. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is set to meet the pope on Thursday in Rome – hoping to remedy a strained relationship between Washington and the Vatican.
Speaking to reporters after Howard Lutnick’s closed-door testimony, James Comer, the Republican chair of the oversight committee, said that the commerce secretary has been “very forthcoming” with his “three” interactions with Jeffrey Epstein over the course of a decade.
Comer also insisted that there is no “cover-up”, as suggested by Democratic members of the panel.
“We asked very substantive questions the first hour,” Comer added. “The Democrats, during their hour, repeated the exact same question.”
FBI searches office of Virginia state senator who played key role in redistricting fight – reports
The FBI raided the office of Louise Lucas, a Virginia state senator who played a key role in the recent fight to redraw the state’s congressional maps, according to several reports.
Citing people familiar with the matter, the Associated Press and the New York Times both report that Lucas’s district office in Portsmouth, Virginia, was searched. The AP adds that the search was part of a corruption investigation.
In a statement to the Guardian, the FBI only said that it was executing a “court-authorized federal search warrant” in the city which sits next to Norfolk. They added that this is an ongoing investigation with no further information publicly available at this time.
Lucas, 82, has been a state senator for 34 years, and is also the first woman and first African American to serve as the Virginia senate’s president pro tempore.
Trump would ‘fire’ Howard Lutnick if he saw video of testimony, say oversight Democrats
Following closed-door testimony from Howard Lutnick before the House oversight committee on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, Democrats called the commerce secretary’s performance “embarrassing”.
“If Donald Trump had seen the video transcript, he would have fired Howard Lutnick,” said congressman Ro Khanna, a progressive Democrat from California.
Lawmakers pointed to alleged inconsistencies between Lutnick’s previous comments on podcasts that he stopped associating with the late sex offender after 2005.
The justice department’s release of case files showed that Lutnick had two engagements with Epstein years past that. He attended a 2011 event at Epstein’s home. And Lutnick’s family had lunch with Epstein on his private island in 2012 – four years after Epstein was sentenced to 13 months in jail for procuring a minor for prostitution.
Lutnick admitted to the 2012 lunch during his 10 February testimony before the Senate appropriations committee. “I did have lunch with him, as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation,” Lutnick said. In that testimony, Lutnick also insisted that he “barely had anything to do” with Epstein.
According to Suhas Subramanyam, a Democratic representative of Virginia, the commerce secretary said “he could remember nothing about the visit to the island. Couldn’t remember why he was there. Couldn’t remember anything he saw.”
Oversight Democrats also said that Lutnick did not answer their questions about whether he spoke with Donald Trump ahead of giving testimony before the panel today.
“I feel very comfortable saying that Howard Lutnick is a pathological liar who is enabling the most egregious cover-up in American history,” congresswoman Yassamin Ansari told reporters, while noting that the commerce secretary told lawmakers it was “inexplicable” that he visited Epstein’s private island. Lutnick described his encounters with Epstein as “meaningless and inconsequential,” Ansari added.
