Van Hollen Confronts Howard Lutnick About His Relationship With Jeffrey Epstein

[0:00] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm informed, Mr. Secretary, that last night we did get the fiscal year 26 NOAA spend plan, so that makes you one out of four in terms of responses, and so I am going to go back to requests and letters that were not responded to, because you did say at the last hearing with respect to the Epstein affair that you had, quote, nothing to hide. [0:29] I assume that is still your testimony today. Is that right, Mr. Secretary? [0:35] That is right. [0:37] So why have you not responded to the letter that Senator Merkley and I sent following up on the last hearing, asking for documents just to be transparent about the situation and answering the questions that we presented in that letter? [0:57] The last time we were together, I agreed and answered every question on that topic with this committee, and I answered each and every topic. [1:11] I have voluntarily agreed in less than two weeks to sit and answer questions on this topic, fully whatever questions are asked of me, voluntarily in less than two weeks with your House colleagues. [1:23] I would ask you if there are any questions that you want me to answer, please give them to the House colleagues, and I am going to answer them all, but I am here today to testify about the budget, and I look forward to discussing the President's budget with you today, but I am volunteering within two weeks to answer any and all questions on this topic. [1:45] Well, Mr. Secretary, we presented you with questions and requests from this committee that have not been responded to, so we are going to have to continue to pursue that. [2:02] We will follow closely what happens in that proceeding. [2:06] I hope you will provide them with the materials that we hope to secure here as well, and again, the reason I'm asking this question at this hearing is because we didn't get a response to the letter, no response at all to that earlier letter. [2:25] The other letter we haven't gotten a response to relates to the issue, as I mentioned, of the U.S. decision, the Commerce Department decision to take a stake, a U.S. government stake in U.S. rare earth, $1.6 billion in federal support, and according to reports, the rare earth's own CEO publicly said that this deal originated in a November [2:56] November 2025 conversation between yourself and herself with no formal application, no public solicitation, and no competitive process. Is that accurate? [3:06] I met the executives of USA Rare Earth, introduced to me by a gentleman named Ken Mollis, who is a famous banker who has a firm by his own name, and so he brought the deal to us because it is well known that China has [3:29] China has weaponized rare earths and critical minerals against the country, and it is very important for the United States to unleash our ability to do rare earths, critical minerals, and magnets, and USA Rare Earth has a mine-to-magnet integrated model, and that was interesting. [3:51] It was presented to me by Ken Mollis, and then I introduced them to the CHIPS team to pursue the transaction. [4:00] So, Mr. Secretary, I have no complaint with the decision to take some U.S. ownership stake in exchange for the investment, something that some of us encourage the Biden administration to do in strategic sectors, like this one, certain others. [4:16] It's more the complete lack of transparency and process under which this deal took place because, you know, before that transaction, I understand that this company's total federal contracting history was worth less than $100,000. [4:33] It also, as you well know, coincided with the fact that your previous firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, helped arrange the transaction on the other side of the deal, on the private investment side, which raises considerable conflict of interest concerns. [4:53] So, can you respond to the letter? Would you respond to the letter by the end of this month that we sent that lays out some of these questions? [5:00] I will take another look at the letter and see if we can work together to resolve your issues. [5:08] I would appreciate that, Mr. Secretary, because it would, you know, again, I want to look at this year's budget, too. [5:15] And the challenge we've got here is when we present you questions, Chairman mentioned some of the things he's asked about, and we get no answers. [5:27] That's a real problem. And it will, it means that we are going to spend more time focusing on the things that you didn't respond to when we want to focus on the future. [5:43] Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you, Senator. [5:44] Thank you, Senator.