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The US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, had lunch with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein<\/a> on the disgraced financier\u2019s private island, he said on Tuesday, as he faces mounting calls to resign from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.<\/p>\n \u201cI did have lunch with him, as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation\u201d in 2012, Lutnick said in testimony<\/a> on Tuesday before the Senate appropriations committee.<\/p>\n Epstein pleaded guilty to state prostitution-related charges in Florida in 2008, including soliciting a minor, in a controversial deal that let him avoid federal charges.<\/p>\n \u201cMy wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies,\u201d said Lutnick. \u201cI had another couple with \u2013 they were there as well, with their children.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd we had lunch on the island, that is true, for an hour,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n The US House member Thomas Massie, a Republican, called<\/a> for the commerce secretary \u2013 a Wall Street billionaire, and longtime ally of Donald Trump<\/a> \u2013 to resign over the weekend. During an appearance on CNN\u2019s Inside Politics, Massie said: \u201cReally, he should make life easier on the president, frankly, and just resign.\u201d<\/p>\n Pointing to how the Epstein scandal has roiled UK politics<\/a>, costing Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor his title as a prince and Peter Mandelson his role as UK ambassador to Washington, Massie added: \u201cIf this were Great Britain, he\u2019d already be gone.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLutnick must resign or be fired,\u201d US House member Robert Garcia, a California Democrat, said in a Twitter\/X post<\/a> on Sunday. \u201cAnd he must answer our questions.\u201d<\/p>\n Other Democrats<\/a>, including House members Ro Khanna, Ted Lieu, Melanie Stansbury, as well as Senator Adam Schiff, have also called for Lutnick to step down.<\/p>\n The White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told<\/a> reporterson Tuesday that Lutnick \u201cremains a very important member\u201d of the president\u2019s team. She also said Trump \u2013 a former friend of Epstein \u2013 \u201cfully supports\u201d Lutnick.<\/p>\n In his testimony on Tuesday morning, Lutnick insisted that he \u201cbarely had anything to do\u201d with Epstein. \u201cI\u2019m glad to be here to make it clear that I met Jeffrey Epstein<\/a> when he moved, when I moved to a house next door to him in New York,\u201d he testified.<\/p>\n \u201cOver the next 14 years, I met him two other times that I can recall, two times,\u201d he said. \u201cSo six years later, I met him, and then a year and a half after that, I met him, and never again.\u201d<\/p>\n Lutnick had previously claimed that he distanced himself from Epstein in 2005. But the latest tranche of files shows the commerce secretary discussing visiting<\/a> the sex offender\u2019s island in 2012 \u2013 four years after Epstein was sentenced to 13 months in jail for procuring a minor for prostitution.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n