[Commerce Secretary] Lutnick’s interview presented a significant narrative jolt because it came from inside the Trump orbit and directly conflicted with the administration’s public claims about the Epstein files.

Describing Epstein as “gross,” Lutnick told Divine about the first time he claims to have visited his neighbor’s home. “I say to him, ‘Massage table in the middle of your house? How often do you have a massage?’” Lutnick recalled. “And he says, ‘Every day.’ And then he gets, like, weirdly close to me, and he says, ‘And the right kind of massage.’”

That’s when Epstein revealed his hand, Lutnick claimed. “‘They get a massage,’ that’s what his M.O. was,” the secretary said of how Epstein catered to his wealthy friends. “‘Get a massage, get a massage,’ and what happened in that massage room, I assume, was on video.”

“So what happened to those videos?” Devine asked. “Why is there now such a dearth of information when, you know, Donald Trump’s people are running the FBI and the DOJ?”

“I assume, way back when, they traded those videos in exchange for him getting that 18-month sentence, which allowed him to have visits and be out of jail. I mean, he’s a serial sex offender. How could he get 18 months and be able to go to his office during the day and have visitors and stuff? There must have been a trade,” Lutnick speculated, referring to Epstein’s 2008 sweetheart plea deal that enabled him to avoid federal sex trafficking charges in exchange for pleading guilty to state charges in Florida.

(Alex Acosta, the U.S. attorney who offered Epstein that secret plea deal, eventually served as Trump’s first term labor secretary.)

——Salon