The Lady Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks
Ellie Leonard reads the closed-door deposition against the released Epstein records, and finds the story doesn't hold together.
by Ellie Leonard, Blue Amp Media Contributing Editor
On May 6th, Howard Lutnick gave a closed-door deposition before the House Oversight Committee. And while a long list of prominent figures gave video-recorded depositions—including President Bill Clinton and Secretary Hillary Clinton, Leslie Wexner, and Ghislaine Maxwell—Lutnick and the “Majority” refused to allow his deposition to be videotaped for the American people, leaving out the ability to judge his body language, alleged profuse sweating, and nervous fidgeting.
Congresswoman Ansari: Would you be open to having this on video?
Howard Lutnick: I’d prefer to just answer questions about my three meaningless and inconsequential meetings as briefly as possible.
Those words, “meaningless” and “inconsequential,” occurred 18 and 21 times, respectively, in the deposition. So did “inexplicable” (6), “no recollection” (8), “speculate/speculating” (16), “one and done” (6), “that’s my story” (3), and “no” (751). It was an exercise in semantics in which Lutnick, “the man, me, I,” juggled his answers in a way so performative that even the interviewers sounded confused and frustrated, which was probably the point. He often paused to clarify the definition of “I” as “Howard Lutnick,” or “as a man,” or “I, we, me, the Howard Lutnick,” lest we forget (maybe because we don’t have video) who was speaking.
Howard Lutnick bought the home next door to Jeffrey Epstein in 1997, and spent the next 8 years renovating the “derelict” mansion filled with “pigeons and mice.” It wouldn’t be until 2005 that his family moved into the building that shared a wall with Epstein’s now infamous Upper Eastside townhouse, purchased from an entity known as the “Comet Trust.” Lutnick claims to remember only a single seller, Charles de Gunzburg. But de Gunzburg’s family transferred the deed from Epstein in 1996, who had transferred it from the SAM Conversion Corp. (run by Leslie Wexner) in 1992, who had purchased it in 1988. And as with most Wexner/Epstein properties, there is no searchable record of sale for 11 East 71st in Lutnick’s name.
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Later that year, Lutnick and his wife had their first (”virtually non-existent”) interaction with Epstein, a knock on the door from an unknown assistant, and an invite for coffee. In Lutnick’s recollection, they sipped for 15 minutes, were offered a tour, discovered a massage table in the middle of what they thought was the dining room, inquired, and were so disgusted by Epstein’s answer that they left, never to return again.
“...and I said, ‘How often do you have a massage?’ And he said...’Every day and the right kind of massage.’ And he said it to me, and my wife is standing next to me, and we looked at each other, and we left.” - Howard Lutnick
Lutnick launched into another long diatribe about who “we” is, and what “I” means, ultimately ending with “I, Howard Lutnick, would not have a personal or professional relationship with this person,” clarifying several times over that this was to mean “business, social, or philanthropic.” He repeats this several times throughout the interview. However, now we know he had all three.
Lutnick emphasizes the lack of interactions or knowledge about Epstein’s personal/criminal history, yet in October of 2025 he had far more opinions about what he thought went on inside Epstein’s home. In the interview with the New York Post’s “Pod Force One,” Lutnick said he assumed everything in that massage room was caught on video, and that the videos were ultimately “traded” for Epstein’s notorious sweetheart deal, in which he received only 13 months of jail time, including 72 hours/week of work release. Lutnick would later retract these statements, saying he was speculating, and that he really didn’t mean what he said when he claimed Epstein was the “greatest blackmailer ever.”
At the time of Pod Force One, Lutnick hadn’t seen the files, and claimed his visit to Epstein’s home was really the only interaction they’d had. But on January 30th, 2026, the DOJ released 3.5 million files, including proof that Lutnick had had a much closer relationship with Epstein than he’d originally claimed, including a trip to the island with his children. In a long thread of emails that began with scheduling, we can read Lutnick’s wife’s excited planning with Lesley Groff, asking where to park the boat as she traveled with her family from St. Thomas to Little St. James. Howard emphasized that they would be bringing a big group, including eight children, four adults, and four nannies.
“ I have another couple with me on my boat, and each of us has 4 children-two 16’s, two 14’s, a 13, a 12, an 11, and a 7-year old. Thanks, Howard.”
Incidentally, the other couple was Michael and Marcy Lehrman, whom Lutnick knew through Cantor Fitzgerald, where Mr. Lehrman worked as the global head of real estate. Lehrman had tried to buy Epstein’s house in 2009, a deal that quickly fell through.
There is little known about the trip to the island, other than pictures of Lutnick on an overlook with his children and Epstein, the emails, and Lutnick’s description of a “brief, meaningless, and inconsequential lunch” that he claimed was only for an hour, and that they didn’t go inside any of the buildings.
“We sat outside, had lunch. It was boring. We left.” - Howard Lutnick
Ten months later, one of the nannies would send her resume to Epstein’s accountant, Richard Kahn, who was attempting arrange an interview between the nanny, Emily Dawson, and Epstein, and a man named “Peter.” It is not known whether the interview happened, and Lutnick claimed not to have knowledge of it, nor did he know if this nanny was one of the nannies from the island.
Lutnick would later testify to this before the Senate Appropriations Committee, again, claiming little knowledge of anything.
Lutnick continued to say he had limited interactions with Epstein over the 14 years they were neighbors, bolstered by the fact that both wealthy men used assistants for all email and phone correspondence. So if Lutnick wanted to say he never saw something, read something, or heard something, he could easily point to the fact that the email came from Lesley Groff (who he says he has no knowledge of), and was sent to his assistant Matthew Gilbert. Sure, they came from Howard’s email address, but he rarely did his own work. So how would he know what was said? An easy out.
He mentions a conversation about scaffolding that the men had in person on the sidewalk. Epstein would be doing work on the house; he wanted Lutnick to know it would be annoying. Another time the men corresponded about sending their lawyers after the nearby Frick Museum, which threatened to block their view of the park with a remodel. Lesley scheduled drinks. Phone calls went back and forth. And history is none the wiser.
But in late 2012, a new tech advertising firm called “Adfin Solutions” launched its first stock purchase agreement, which included several investors. Two of those investors were Howard Lutnick and Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein invested nearly $900,000 into the company, owning 4.29% and over a million shares under the heading of the “Southern Trust LLC.” Lutnick, however, says it was not he himself who invested in Adfin Solutions, but Cantor Fitzgerald, and claimed no knowledge that Epstein was involved. Their signatures are one page apart, and the Southern Trust is listed many times in the sales documents.
Jack Emmer: Okay. So this is, from its title page, appears to be a stock purchase agreement or a series A preferred stock purchase agreement for a company named AdFin Solutions, dated December 28, 2012. At the back of the document, Bates numbers ending in 9580 and 9581, we find Mr. Epstein, as well as yourself, as signatories to the agreement. When this agreement was signed in December of 2012, did you know that Mr. Epstein was also a signatory to the agreement?
Howard Lutnick: No.
But according to documents found in the Epstein Files, the two men were still talking about their investments in Adfin, with Lutnick encouraging Epstein that “this is their year.” Adfin officially went out of business by 2023.
Five years later, Epstein donated $50,000 to a United Jewish Appeal Federation dinner honoring Howard, which included a ten-seat table and the opportunity to write a glowing blurb. Epstein did not attend, nor did he write anything.
During all the years that Lutnick lived next door to Epstein, he claims not to have known many things, nor people, nor have seen the countless big names going in and out of Epstein’s home, including former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barack, Woody Allen, the former Prince Andrew, Steve Bannon, Bill Clinton, and allegedly Donald Trump. He says he met Ghislaine Maxwell only once, though there’s evidence that she and Duchess Sarah Ferguson shared an office for Fergie’s Children in Crisis (CIC) charity upstairs from Lutnick in Cantor’s 59th St. building. And in 2003, Maxwell attended the La Dolce Vita Gala at the Stowe School, which raised thousands of dollars for Cantor Fitzgerald after the loss of 9/11.
But the biggest and most glaring discrepancy I found in Howard Lutnick’s deposition was the determination that he had no knowledge of Jeffry Epstein’s prior sexual criminal history, nor reputation, outside of the comments made in Epstein’s home about his preference for massage. And yet, Lutnick moved into the neighboring home in 2005, one year before Epstein’s arrest in Palm Beach for sexually abusing three-dozen underage girls, and three years before his jail sentence began. During this time, and in the years after, Lutnick continued to claim no knowledge of Epstein’s activities. By 2012, when Lutnick and his wife changed their minds about Epstein and brought their children to his island, there had been over 300 separate articles written in New York City alone about Epstein’s criminal history. But Lutnick claims never to have seen those articles, though he is a self-professed reader of the news, and often became the subject post-9/11.
And would Lutnick not have noticed when his neighbor disappeared for 13 months between 2008 and 2009, and the heavy traffic in and out of Epstein’s house rolled to a stop? Or are the rumors true that Epstein continued to fly back and forth to New York during his “work release,” hosting dinners with wealthy men and hiring high-school girls to give the “right kind of massage?”
Here’s what I think (not that you asked). I think those files that we’ve never seen contain everything else about Howard Lutnick, one of the wealthiest men in Epstein’s orbit, and a perfect crossover into the Trump Administration, which is also mysteriously missing from public view. I don’t think he and Epstein were close friends, but I do think their finances crossed many times over. Lutnick, being the billionaire next door, would have been too much for Epstein to resist. The meetings, the phone calls, the visit to the island, the donations and connections and stock shares, all point to a very enmeshed relationship with big finance and the potential to abuse the very sad history of Cantor Fitzgerald and the terror attacks on 9/11.
It’s my opinion, but we’ll never know until we see those files, as dictated by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which clearly states: “No record shall be withheld, delayed, or redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.”
Prove me wrong, Howard.
If you would like to read the Epstein Files Transparency Act, you can do that here.
If you would like to read Howard Lutnick’s full deposition, you can do that here.