Nancy Mace Hits at Trump Official for Dining With Epstein: ‘I Wouldn’t Sit and Have Lunch With a Convicted Pedophile’

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) criticized U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick for having “lunch with a convicted pedophile” on Tuesday, after the Trump secretary admitted to having lunch with the late serial sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on his infamous island.

Asked by NewsNation host Katie Pavlich about Lutnick’s lunch with Epstein – which he admitted before the Senate this week – Mace said, “It is not criminal, I mean that is the truth, and I’m glad that he told the truth under oath today. As a mom, I wouldn’t sit and have lunch with a convicted pedophile. I don’t think that’s something that I would personally do, but that’s my personal choice.”

“Do you think he should resign?” questioned Pavlich.

Mace replied, “Um… no, I wouldn’t go that far. He hasn’t– I’ve not seen any evidence that he did anything wrong. You shouldn’t just be fired because of who you had lunch with. But I do question people who weren’t straightforward, who weren’t honest right away with the American public, and what are we hiding?”

She continued, “I saw some names in there of people that I had no idea would be in the files, who were scheduling lunch or meetings with a convicted pedophile. Didn’t do anything wrong, but certainly you question, ‘Wow, why are all these people, rich and powerful and famous, Hollywood etc, doing this?'”

“But again, my focus is strictly on the victims, getting justice for them. People who broke the law and did crimes,” the congresswoman concluded. “That’s not Howard Lutnick. It’s not Donald Trump either.”

Like several people in the Trump administration, including the president himself, Lutnick had a years-long relationship with Epstein, who at one point was his neighbor.

Despite claiming in October that he had vowed never to be in the same room as Epstein after a “disgusting” encounter in 2005, he continued to have contact with the convicted sex offender for years afterwards.

On Tuesday, Lutnick testified before the Senate that he and his family had lunch with Epstein on his infamous “pedophile island” Little Saint James in 2012 – four years after Epstein had been convicted for procuring a child for prostitution.

Watch above via NewsNation.

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