Trump Nemesis Massie Drops New Info on Lutnick After Bombshell Hearing on Epstein Island Visit
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) told CNN anchor and senior White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins about new revelations he discovered following Trump Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick’s grilling over his visit to Jeffrey Epstein’s private island.
The newest batch of Epstein documents appear to contradict Lutnick’s previous statements that he shunned Epstein after a creepy 2005 encounter when they were neighbors.
Secretary Lutnick was grilled at a hearing Tuesday over the discrepancy and his visit to the private island with his wife and children in 2012 — years after Epstein’s conviction on sex crimes.
On Tuesday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Collins asked Massie if he’d found out anything new after he went back to the Justice Department to view unredacted files.
Massie revealed that Lutnick and Epstein exchanged phone numbers — and arrangements for phone calls had been documented:
KAITLAN COLLINS: I believe you went back to the Justice Department today. If you did, what more can you tell us about what you saw?
REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): Well, I saw that Lutnick shared his phone number with Epstein, and that their assistants were setting up phone calls between them. So, there is at least that other connection.
I didn’t find any new names today. I didn’t have a lot of time to spend there. But the main — by the way, it’s a room with four computers, and it’s busy all the time. There’s always at least four congressmen in there. And the main complaint that I hear, as we search through these files, is that when you unredact some of the files, you encounter more redactions. And then when we ask the DOJ, Why are these files redacted? Why can’t we remove the redactions? The DOJ says, Well, that’s the form in which we received the files.
Now, here’s the problem with that, Kaitlan. The legislation that Ro Khanna and I wrote, directs the Attorney General to produce the documents, but they have to give all the documents that are in the possession, not of the DOJ, but also of the FBI and also of the U.S. attorneys.
So, what’s happened, it seems, is that the U.S. attorneys and/or the FBI have redacted documents, given them to the DOJ, and then the DOJ hasn’t done their diligence to go get the original documents.
COLLINS: But the whole point of letting lawmakers go into that room is that you’re supposed to be able to see what we cannot see, what is still redacted, so you can look at the redactions and basically verify that they are warranted.
And yet, you’re saying even what you’re looking at, that is supposed to be unredacted, is still redacted. Right?
MASSIE: Correct. Sometimes, you remove the black redaction, and you see a white redaction. And sometimes, you try to remove the black redaction and it’s all completely redacted still. So, that’s a problem.
Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.
New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!
Comments
↓ Scroll down for comments ↓