Link without paywall: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-cabinet-secretary-faces-call-to-testify-over-his-explosive-epstein-claims/ar-AA1NJyHw

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick may be forced to testify to Congress after suggesting that Jeffrey Epstein secured a sweetheart plea deal by blackmailing people with compromising videos.

Speaking on the New York Post’s Pod Force One podcast, Lutnick, a billionaire financier who lived next to Epstein before he was exposed as a pedophile, described how Epstein gave him and his wife a tour of his Manhattan townhouse, which featured a massage table as its centerpiece.

“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.’”

Lutnick claimed that some of Epstein’s wealthy and powerful associates would have received massages from young women and girls at Epstein’s home, and that the encounters were filmed for blackmail purposes.

“They get a massage, that’s what his M.O. was. ‘Get a massage, get a massage,’ and what happened in that massage room, I assume, was on video,” Lutnick said. “This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever. That’s how he had money.”

  • crank0271@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I don’t know… are you ready to find out how many people in this country can suddenly justify sexual assault if “it’s just a massage, what’s the big deal??”

    • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      You know, you make a good point. If people just hear about someone getting a massage, they could probably dismiss it. If you have a 14 y.o. massaging a 50 year old man as a visual, that is a different matter all together. Same with Trump grabbing woman by the pussy. Seeing that happen vs hearing him talk about it, let’s people think he’s exaggerating. Seeing as how a jury with trumpers on it found that he raped Jean Carrol, he wasn’t exaggerating.

      • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
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        22 hours ago

        If you have a 14 yo massaging a 50 yo AND VIDEO OF IT IS USED AS BLACKMAIL, that’s a different matter altogether.

    • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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      23 hours ago

      If we don’t test there’s fewer COVID cases - same thinking. Better to know so a solution can be better applied.