A photograph launched final month by the Justice Division as a part of the Epstein recordsdata that confirmed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick with convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein on Epstein’s island within the Caribbean was faraway from the Justice Division’s web site earlier than being restored Thursday night time.
The photograph, which has been authenticated by CBS Information, exhibits Epstein, Lutnick, and three different males standing over an oceanside cliff.
The Web Archive’s Wayback Machine, a nonprofit that preserves digital on-line content material, downloaded the photograph from the DOJ’s web site on Jan. 31. It was additionally archived by Jmail, an online interface that was created to archive Epstein content material.
The photograph was launched below file No. EFTA01230639 on the DOJ’s web site. In some unspecified time in the future it was eliminated and the hyperlink pointed to a “Web page not discovered.” Nevertheless, inside hours of publishing the story, it was restored Thursday night time.
CBS Information has reached out to the Commerce Division and the DOJ for remark.
U.S. Division of Justice / Web Archive
Emails that have been within the hundreds of thousands of newly launched Epstein recordsdata confirmed that in 2012, Lutnick, his spouse and their 4 kids deliberate a go to to Little St. James, a non-public island the place Epstein had an property.
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Lutnick was invited for lunch on Dec. 24, 2012, and later, Epstein’s assistant wrote on behalf of Epstein, “it was good seeing you.”
Lutnick, testifying earlier than a congressional committee earlier this month, acknowledged visiting there along with his household.
“We had lunch on the island, that’s true, for an hour,” Lutnick instructed lawmakers. “Then we left with all of my kids, with my nannies and my spouse all collectively. We have been on household trip. We weren’t aside. To counsel there was something untoward about that in 2012, I do not recall why we did it. However we did.”
Lutnick has not been accused of any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein, and within the listening to mentioned he had “nothing to cover — completely nothing.”
In latest weeks, although, Lutnick has confronted criticism for his ties to Epstein, who was his neighbor in New York Metropolis. Lutnick had beforehand claimed to have minimize off contact with Epstein in 2005.
Nevertheless, paperwork within the Epstein recordsdata confirmed the 2 have been in enterprise collectively as just lately as 2014 over their shared dealings in a now-shuttered promoting firm referred to as Adfin.
The Epstein recordsdata confirmed that the 2 communicated about Adfin as late as 2018, with Epstein writing to Lutnick, “on one other be aware what do you suppose the prospects for adfin are??”
Additionally in 2018, Lutnick emailed Epstein to apparently complain about an enlargement plan for the Frick Assortment artwork museum close to their properties.
Lutnick warned Epstein that the renovation may “block your daylight and views.”
“You need to put in a letter. I am sending a lawyer. Do not ignore this,” Lutnick wrote.
Epstein died in jail in 2019 after his arrest on federal costs of intercourse trafficking. His loss of life was dominated a suicide.
