There is a very old, very tired joke in politics: politicians promise to "drain the swamp," but invariably end up building a luxury hotel right in the middle of the mud. While I have seen this play out in London and Rome, nobody does it quite like the Americans. The latest act in this expensive political theater involves **Howard Lutnick**, the current **US Commerce Secretary**. He is the man in charge of **business and trade**, supposedly a serious operator for serious times. But according to recently surfaced **emails**, Lutnick and his family planned a trip to a very specific, very infamous location: **Little Saint James**.

You might know it better as **Jeffrey Epstein’s private island**.

Let us pause for a moment and appreciate the sheer absurdity of this. This is not a trip to a theme park or a golf course. This is a proposed excursion to the private lair of a man whose name is now synonymous with the worst kinds of crimes. Crucially, the **Commerce Secretary** didn’t just intend to go alone to talk business in a dark room; the reports confirm he planned to take his family.

This detail is what separates the merely corrupt from the totally out-of-touch. Who looks at a private island owned by a mysterious financier with a creepy reputation and thinks, "Yes, this looks like a lovely spot for the kids"? It shows a level of blindness that is almost impressive.

It speaks to a problem that goes much deeper than one man or one administration. It highlights the "Bubble." When you possess enough money and power, red flags don't look red anymore; they just look like decorations. For the ultra-rich and the politically powerful, people like Epstein weren't monsters to be avoided. They were just other rich guys with nice planes and private beaches. They were part of the club.

And what a club it is. We watch politicians scream at each other on television, claiming the other side is evil. But when the cameras turn off, they go to the same parties, board the same private jets, and visit the same islands. **Lutnick** is part of a cohort that promised to fix the system, yet these **emails** suggest they are just as deep in the muck as everyone else.

The saddest part of this story is the banality of it. We are reading about this in administrative correspondence. It is just scheduling—"Can we fit the **Epstein island trip** in between the board meeting and the charity gala?" It treats a house of horrors like it is just another stop on the itinerary. This is how evil works in the modern world: not a cackling villain, but a calendar invite.

In a normal world, planning a family trip to a predator's hideout would be a career-ending scandal. But we live in a world where shame is dead, and the public is too exhausted to react. They count on that exhaustion. So, **Mr. Lutnick** plans a trip, the emails leak, and we laugh a bitter laugh while the machinery of the state keeps grinding on. It proves definitively that the people at the top are living in a different universe where morality is just something poor people worry about.

<h3>References & Fact-Check</h3> <ul> <li><strong>Original Event:</strong> New emails reveal that US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick planned a family visit to Jeffrey Epstein's private island, Little Saint James.</li> <li><strong>Source Verification:</strong> <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crmlr0nk8y9o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">BBC News: US Commerce Secretary Lutnick planned Epstein island visit, emails show</a></li> <li><strong>Context:</strong> Howard Lutnick, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, was nominated as Commerce Secretary under the Trump administration.</li> </ul>