'Basically Buy A Prince': Leaked Files Reveal Trump Official Tried To Exploit Ex-Prince Andrew For $1M

Donald Trump's commerce secretary Howard Lutnick is facing fresh pressure in Washington after leaked Jeffrey Epstein files in London appeared to show him discussing a joint investment with Epstein in 2018 and planning to exploit ex-Prince Andrew's royal connections in a $1 million (£740,000) deal five years earlier.

Lutnick has spent months trying to draw a hard line under his relationship with Epstein, telling the House Oversight Committee in May that, to the best of his recollection, he only realised in 2026 that Epstein had money in a digital advertising firm called AdFin. He has also insisted he cut off contact with Epstein in 2005, two years before the financier first pleaded guilty to sex offences.

Inside New Details on Lutnick's Connection With Ex-Prince Andrew

The new material has suggested that not only that Lutnick was still talking business with Epstein long after the disgraced financier's 2008 conviction, but that one of his Wall Street outfits explored a scheme in 2013 to turn ex-Prince Andrew's global Rolodex into a commercial asset.

The emails were spotted by Simon Andriesz, a former managing director at one of Lutnick's firms, as he worked through millions of documents linked to the Epstein litigation. Andriesz told the broadcaster he stumbled across a 2018 exchange in which Epstein pressed Lutnick, referred to as 'HWL,' on how their shared investment in AdFin was doing.

According to the account of the chain, Epstein asked: 'What do you think the prospects for adfin are?' Lutnick replied that the company was 'producing revenue finally,' and added: 'This is their year. Next 12 months they need to become economically self-sufficient.'

In other words, the two men were not just vaguely aware of each other's interests, they were talking strategy about a company in which both Epstein and Lutnick's firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, had invested. That point matters because it collides head-on with Lutnick's sworn timeline to Congress.

Epstein Emails Undercut Lutnick's Defence

The news came after Lutnick's previous testimony had already been shaken by Justice Department files that described him joining a 2012 family lunch on Epstein's private Caribbean island, despite his public claim to have severed ties with Epstein in 2005.

In May, after a closed-door session with Lutnick, House Oversight Committee members from both parties emerged sceptical. Ranking Member Robert Garcia and a group of Democrats later accused the billionaire of using his appearance to 'perpetuate a false narrative' and dodge accountability for his post‑conviction relationship with Epstein. Republican congressman Thomas Massie, who is leaving office, went further, calling outright for Lutnick's resignation.

'Prince [Andrew] lost his title for less than what we've seen Howard Lutnick lie about,' Massie said, drawing a deliberate comparison between the disgraced royal and Trump's commerce secretary.

Senator Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, accused Lutnick of being dishonest about the extent of his business with a 'convicted child s-- offender,' and said those alleged lies raised serious questions about his judgement and ethics in public office.

The leaked 2018 exchange gives those critics something they did not previously have, a contemporaneous document where Epstein and Lutnick speak directly about a joint stake that Lutnick has told Congress he did not know Epstein held until eight years later.

The Department of Commerce, speaking on Lutnick's behalf, has pushed back, saying there is no evidence of wrongdoing in the communications unearthed so far. It has not, at least publicly, tried to explain the gap between Lutnick's testimony and the email wording as reported.

'Basically Buy A Prince': Ex-Prince Andrew Angle Deepens Fallout

If the AdFin messages are awkward, the ex-Prince Andrew material is politically toxic. While combing through older files, Andriesz said he also found 2013 documents showing that one of Lutnick's firms drew up plans to go into business with the then‑Prince Andrew by harnessing the contacts the Duke of York had amassed as a UK trade envoy.

The proposed arrangement, according to Andriesz's description to the BBC, involved a loan of more than $1 million (£740,000). The way he saw it, the whole point was to 'basically buy a prince,' using hard cash to secure Andrew's access and introductions as a commercial lever.

Those documents sit uncomfortably alongside the more recent implosion of ex-Prince Andrew's public life. He has stepped back from royal duties and lost the use of his 'His Royal Highness' style following sustained scrutiny of his own ties to Epstein. That context is exactly why Massie's line about Andrew losing his title lands with such sting.

The Department of Commerce's position is that none of these communications show criminal behaviour by Lutnick. There is no suggestion in the material reported so far of charges or formal investigations into the 2013 Prince Andrew proposal.

Still, politically, the optics are awful. A Trump cabinet official already under fire for misrepresenting his links to a convicted sex offender now finds his name tangled in a scheme to monetise the address book of another Epstein associate, a senior royal who later became a symbol of the scandal in Britain.

On Capitol Hill, those optics matter as much as any eventual legal finding. Lawmakers who reluctantly gave Lutnick the benefit of the doubt in May will be reviewing his old testimony in light of specific dates and phrases from the new leaks, and asking whether he misled them or simply forgot key details of multi‑million‑dollar ventures.

The answer to that question, if it comes, will probably not arrive in a neat email chain.