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Howard Lutnick and his sons are surely happy about this. It’s almost like Howard Lutnick, the Secretary of Commerce, knew this would happen. His sons, at their

• deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
• SilverElfin 8mo ago
  That’s an insane conflict of interest. His sons took over the firm? It was already bad that Lutnick took over in the first place. As I recall he sued the widow of Cantor to steal control of the company after Cantor died. But I guess this is not very surprising. I am sure every friend and family member of Trump administration people made trades leading all those tariff announcements over the last year, while the rest of us got rocked by the chaos in the stock market.
  • tills13 8mo ago
    This admin? Conflict of interest? Add it to the list.
  • edot 8mo ago
    Lutnick is not a good man. There’s also this, from https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01249207.pdf https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA012492... “LUTNICK was a neighbor of JEFFREY EPSTEIN (EPSTEIN) in the adjoining property at 11 E 71st Street, New York, New York. LUTNICK bought the property for $10 through a trust. LES WEXNER (WEXNER) and EPSTEIN owned the building. LUTNICK bought it in a very roundabout way from EPSTEIN.”
  • mywittyname 8mo ago
    > That’s an insane conflict of interest. Welcome to America. This isn't even in the top 10 of corrupt activities our government officials undertaken in the past year.
    • fuzzfactor 8mo ago
      Suffer from a downvote-a-bot much? Corrective upvote applied.
  • WillPostForFood 8mo ago
    Serious question - what do you think the kids should do when their parents get political positions, not work?
    • throwaway27448 8mo ago
      Having control of a company is not exactly "work".
    • Marsymars 8mo ago
      The responsibility is on the parent; the parent should recuse themselves from decisions or discussions where there could be a conflict of interest involving their family members.
      • wat10000 8mo ago
        Or better yet, the parent should not be appointed to the position in the first place. If members of your immediate family occupy important positions in the industry you'd be involved with, then you don't get the job. Very easy solution, if the people in power were willing to do it.
        • dcrazy 8mo ago
          This is kind of an absurd rule. The kids of the people who are seen as so good at their jobs to be appointed to public office are all the more likely to follow in their parents’ footsteps.
          • wat10000 8mo ago
            So? Is there nobody who would be good at the job who wouldn't have a gigantic conflict of interest due to family? What's so absurd about saying you can't have massive conflicts of interest if you're going to be an important government official?
• mothballed 8mo ago
  I've wondered from the beginning if the whole tariff thing wasn't basically an insider operation for import/export insiders to profit off of rate arbitrage, if not outright black market operations. That's more sadistic than I had guessed. ------ re: below due to throttling ---------- Lutnicks profit requires some 2nd order thinking. How Trump et al might profit off of import/export insider operations also requires some 2nd order thinking. My apologies for not spelling it out, although it should not take much imagination.
  • bdangubic 8mo ago
    Not import/export insiders, the Trump family... always just follow the money, maybe along the way some "import/export" people get some crumbs but most of it ends up a Mar a Largo :-)
• vlovich123 8mo ago
  It’s a tax on the US economy. A tax levied by individuals rather than the government itself. An ingenious scheme. Evil, but ingenious.
  • fuzzfactor 8mo ago
    It's not a legitimate tax. That's why it taxed the economy much worse than a legitimate President would do.
    • latchkey 8mo ago
      maybe i lean too much in one direction, but what is a "legitimate tax"? Once again, count on hn for the downvotes. Yep, those shall not speak of downvotes, or taxation.
      • ceejayoz 8mo ago
        One the usually friendly Supreme Court doesn't strike down as too blatantly illegal even for them?
      • SiempreViernes 8mo ago
        In this context it simply means "legal".
        • dmix 8mo ago
          As in only Congress can create new taxes and regulate commerce.
      • fuzzfactor 8mo ago
        Excellent question. I lean quite heavily myself. In more ways than one though ;) The most legitimate tax I see is one that citizens would cheerfully pay willingly under any economic conditions.
        • deleted 8mo ago
• sc68cal 8mo ago
  The Lutnick sons were also probably betting on the outcome of the case on Kalshi
• tfehring 8mo ago
  I wouldn’t put anything past them, but my impression is that they were just acting as a middleman for this transaction and taking a fee, rather than making a directional bet one way or another. Hedge funds have certainly been buying a lot of tariff claims, giving businesses guaranteed money upfront and betting on this outcome. But for an investment bank like Cantor Fitzgerald that would be atypical.
  • lordnacho 8mo ago
    > they were just acting as a middleman This is no excuse. If they knew this would be a business, being a broker of such deals would be sure to make them money.
    • sgerenser 8mo ago
      It’s not really excusing anything, just pointing out that Cantor Fitzgerald would be making money whether this Supreme Court ruling went for or against the Trump tariffs. So it’s not like they had to have any inside knowledge to be making money.
      • fblp 8mo ago
        They do make more money the more pervasive tariffs are though as more people would buy tariff related financial products.
        • tfehring 8mo ago
          It's true that a volatile environment in general is good for certain types of investment banking business, including facilitating this trade. I nevertheless think it's unlikely - honestly, a galaxy brain take - that Cantor Fitzgerald or other investment banks with influence in the Trump administration would push for policies like unconstitutional tariffs just to drive trading revenue. Maybe the strongest reason is that other, frankly more lucrative investment banking activities, like fundraising and M&A, benefit from a growing economy and a stable economic and regulatory environment.
• uncletomscourt 8mo ago
  You think at some point america would get sick of having a billionaire gang of thieves in charge. Trump just gave himself a $10 billion dollar slush fund from taxpayers. Who stopped him? No one. This amount of money will buy you one great den. Noem wants luxury jets from the taxpayer. So. Much. Winning.
  • dylan604 8mo ago
    > So. Much. Winning. Like the man said, I'm definitely tired of all the winning. Emoluments clause be damned.
  • throwawaysleep 8mo ago
    Trump has a long record of stealing from Joe Average and had been doing it since between 2016. Joe Average thinks he’s clever for doing it.
    • pousada 8mo ago
      Joe Average knows he is getting fucked over either way
      • ceejayoz 8mo ago
        Polling suggests Joe Average didn't expect this much fucking.
        • ohyoutravel 8mo ago
          They knew, they just figured it would be against people who didn’t look quite like them or have the same accent as them.
      • bloomingeek 8mo ago
        No offense, and you're not entirely wrong, but this is one of the big reasons we are in this situation politically. Millions of voters stayed home because they thought this way. The result: America is the embarrassment of the world, no longer to be trusted. We all must vote, even if we must hold our noses while doing it. We can't allow known thugs to be in command. (I was a life long GOP voter, to my shame, until 2004. How the American public didn't see the puke of a DJT presidency coming is beyond the pale.)
• mrbombastic 8mo ago
  A witness also reported to the FBI that Lutnick and CF are engaged in massive fraud: https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01249207.pdf https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA012492... Oh and he bought his house from Epstein for $10. Nothing to see here just a criminal admin fleecing you without even shame enough to try to hide it well.
  • sjsdaiuasgdia 8mo ago
    And took his wife, kids, and their nannies to have lunch with Epstein. Years after he'd said he wouldn't associate with Epstein anymore, and years after Epstein's conviction. If that was me, I would have used my substantial wealth to have lunch literally anywhere else in the world, with anyone else in the world.
    • sjsdaiuasgdia 8mo ago
      [flagged]
      • fuzzfactor 8mo ago
        Don't be so disparaging with your terminology. These are persons of Trump-like character, not just your average booster :\
  • munificent 8mo ago
    > without even shame enough to try to hide it well. Why would they bother hiding it when the populace is apparently powerless to do anything about it?
    • tartoran 8mo ago
      It's not just powerless, I see that Republicans seem to not care a yota about this type of fraud.
• taeric 8mo ago
  Holy crap, you couldn't make a story that is a more direct echo of the plot point in Wonderful Life if you tried.
  • coldpie 8mo ago
    If whoever runs in 2028 does not have a concrete plan for investigating & prosecuting every single person who worked under this admin from top to bottom, they are wasting everyone's time. We need to see hundreds of life-in-prison sentences by the end of 2029.
    • fuzzfactor 8mo ago
      The first thing on the agenda is to impeach & convict, if there were enough patriotic Americans in Congress it should be possible this afternoon. Then they can take their time to reverse all immunity granted by this President so all snakes can be rooted out.
      • ohyoutravel 8mo ago
        Presidential pardon immunity is unreversable. There could potentially be a constitutional amendment on this, which is a super high bar, but even then the prohibition on ex post facto laws would only affect pardons going forward. It will be up to the states.
        • triceratops 8mo ago
          > Presidential pardon immunity is unreversable But presidents are also immune against prosecution for official acts. Could a president just disregard pardons from a prior administration? Immovable object, irresistible force kinda situation right?
          • ohyoutravel 8mo ago
            Yes, but the courts would dismiss the case. If not the appeals court would. If not the Supreme Court would.
• FrustratedMonky 8mo ago
  Remember when a conflict of interest was so important that Jimmy Carter sold his peanut farm, because heaven forbid, he accidentally made some money while president. Like his peanut farm would unduly sway government peanut policy.
  • somenameforme 8mo ago
    An even more interesting one is that Ford was the first president to go on paid speaking tours after office. It's not like the 37 other presidents couldn't have also cashed in on the office in a similar fashion, but it was felt that such a thing would impugn the integrity of the office and also undermine the perception of somebody working as a genuine servant of the state. There has most certainly been a major decline in values over time that corresponds quite strongly with the rise in the perceived importance of wealth.
    • lumost 8mo ago
      Curious if part of this was the overall decline in government compensation relative to the private sector. The president makes roughly what the typical SV engineer makes after 5 years in big tech or as a fresh grad from a top PhD program. Meanwhile the people the president deals with have become unfathomably wealthy. In 1909, the US president made 75k - roughly 2.76 Million in today's dollars. This is in comparison to the current 400k dollar salary of the president. As the president is the highest paid government employee by law/custom - this applies downward pressure on the rest of the governments payroll. I see no reason why the president shouldn't be modestly wealthy given the requirements or the role and the skill required to do it well. Cutting the payscale to less than some new grads seems like a recipe for corruption.
      • somenameforme 8mo ago
        Since 1958 with the Former Presidents Act [1] the Presidency guarantees you'll live very comfortably for the rest of your life with a lifetime pension (and even a small pension for your wife), funding for an office/staff, lifetime secret service protection, funded travel, and more. It was passed precisely because of the scenario you describe playing out with Truman who was rather broke, and ran into financial difficulties after leaving office. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Former_Presidents_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Former_Presidents_Act
• f33d5173 8mo ago
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  • noonething 8mo ago
    [flagged]
  • burkaman 8mo ago
    He had access to the entire legal team for one side of the case. He also had access to internal legal discussions when the tariffs were put in place, when the president was almost certainly advised that they were illegal and would likely be struck down.
  • ceejayoz 8mo ago
    Oh, come on. They spy on Congress (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/lawmakers-demand-doj-stop-tracking-lawmakers-epstein-files-searches-rcna258721 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/lawmakers-demand-d...). They likely don't even need to spy on SCOTUS. They just have to chat with Ginni Thomas. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/30/ginni-thomas-clarence-thomas-2020-election https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/30/ginni-thomas... "The conservative activist Ginni Thomas has “no memory” of what she discussed with her husband, the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, during the heat of the battle to overturn the 2020 presidential election, according to congressional testimony released on Friday." "Thomas also claimed the justice was unaware of texts she exchanged with [White House Chief of Staff] Meadows and took a swipe at the committee for having “leaked them to the press while my husband was in a hospital bed fighting an infection”."
    • notyourwork 8mo ago
      Sadly people don’t have to remember. They have to be proven guilty.
  • SirFatty 8mo ago
    Said with confidence, as if you actually know what's going on behind the scenes.
  • 8mo ago
• singpolyma3 8mo ago
  Is a refund even likely? Seems more likely the administration orders everyone to ignore the court.
  • sjm-lbm 8mo ago
    If you read the opinions, it's even less clear. The majority does not make it at all clear whether or not refunds are due, and Kavanaugh's dissent specifically calls out this weakness in the majority opinion. Even if the executive branch's actions stop here, there's still a lot of arguing in court to do over refunds.
    • deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
    • jeffbee 8mo ago
      It is not a "weakness" of the majority that the criminal activity has left a mess.
      • sjm-lbm 8mo ago
        No, but it is a weakness that they have neglected to provide the clarity that would be required to clean it up.
        • vkou 8mo ago
          In society, isn't it generally accepted that the person shitting on the floor be the one responsible for cleaning up after himself?
          • MadnessASAP 8mo ago
            Anybody who has worked a service/retail job can tell you that the person literally shitting on the floor rarely is the one to clean it up. And unfortunately that extends to the metaphor as well. Society would like to see those responsible for the mess to also be responsible for the cleanup. However society expects that everybody but the mess maker will be left cleaning up.
• sophacles 8mo ago
  Yeah, he's gotta finance the payments to whoever the kiddie peddler du jour is somehow. Especially now that he can't just walk next door or steer his yacht towards a conveniently located island.
  • JKCalhoun 8mo ago
    You don't think there's already a replacement island?
    • tremon 8mo ago
      I'm not even convinced that the first one has been decommissioned yet.
• zeroonetwothree 8mo ago
  Most people knew this would happen, it was widely predicted.
• helterskelter 8mo ago
  Wait you don't mean the same Howard Lutnick who was sold a mansion for the sum of ten dollars by none other than Jeffrey Epstein himself? I'm shocked.
• JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
  > a tariff refund product wherein they pay companies who are struggling with paying tariffs 20-30% of a potential refund For what it’s worth, I’ve personally been doing this. Not in meaningful dollar amounts. And largely to help regional businesses stay afloat. But I paid their tariffs and bought, in return, a limited power of attorney and claim to any refunds.
  • deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
  • kccoder 8mo ago
    Presumably you're not a admin cabinet member or related to one or have inside info from those in the cabinet, which is the key differentiator.
    • JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
      Totally with you on the corruption angle. I was just pointing out that loaning businesses money isn’t inherently evil. I’m also unconvinced anyone I lent to actually wants to go through the trouble and political risk of fighting for a refund.
• thr0waway_abcd 8mo ago
  There's no scam too big or too small, from Trumpcoin's open bribery, to Secret Service paying 5x the GSA per diem rate to stay at Trump properties on duty.
• simonw 8mo ago
  Meanwhile Pam Bondi's brother is a lawyer who's firm represents clients with cases against the justice department, and those cases keep getting dropped. - https://www.newsweek.com/trump-doj-handling-pam-bondi-brother-cases-democrats-question-11221215 https://www.newsweek.com/trump-doj-handling-pam-bondi-brothe... - https://abcnews.com/US/doj-drops-charges-client-ag-pam-bondis-brother/story?id=125073335 https://abcnews.com/US/doj-drops-charges-client-ag-pam-bondi...
  • FireBeyond 8mo ago
    Ahh, Brad Bondi, who it is widely rumored to be attempting to join the Bar in DC for the convenient benefit of being able to wield influence in the event of anyone trying to push for disbarrment against Pam...
  • mothballed 8mo ago
    Yeah this is basically a thing everywhere. I was criminally charged in a certain mid-sized town, all I did was search through the court records to find the lawyer who always gets the charges dropped, hired them, and they went away for me too. Unfortunately that's the way the just us system works.
    • neaden 8mo ago
      Well what you're describing could just be finding the most skilled lawyer in town. What the other person is describing is bribery and nepotism.
      • mothballed 8mo ago
        Maybe Brad Bondi is the most skilled lawyer in town. It's certainly not in the interest of the clients to have any material knowledge otherwise, nor for it to be revealed to them.
        • Eisenstein 8mo ago
          It is, however, in the interest of the American public not to have a corrupt justice system. Thus, we should not rely on far fetched assumptions instead of investigating corruption where it appears.
• danesparza 8mo ago
  Basically a bookie, eh? And the house never loses...
• sixQuarks 8mo ago
  That Lutnik is always sooooo lucky. He didn’t go to the twin towers on 9/11 cause he finally took his kid to kindergarten. Always seems to be in the right place and the right time
• throwaway613746 8mo ago
  [dead]
• b0sk 8mo ago
  Witkoffs profited off the UAE Spy Sheikh chips deal! Why can't Lutnicks make millions?! Come on guys. Unfair. https://archive.is/W6Gqy https://archive.is/W6Gqy
• nprz 8mo ago
  And this is the same Howard Lutnick who was just last week was caught blatantly lying about his relationship with Epstein? [0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/30/new-epstein-files-howard-lutnick-island https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/30/new-epstein-...
• pear01 8mo ago
  He is also surely happy the Trump administration no longer sees fit to investigate or pursue anyone with connections to Epstein. Previously Lutnick had lied about the extent of their relationship, yet even after the recent relevations he can simply wave them off. What a profitable time for the Lutnicks, who are of course already fabulously wealthy. Our system really does reward the best people.
• wnc3141 8mo ago
  If the court establishes that this was a tax, how would they administer the refund considering it's impossible to disentangle absorbed tariffs by firms and those passed along to consumers?
  • Matticus_Rex 8mo ago
    SCOTUS left it unspecified, but the refund would go to the payer, legally.
• chinathrow 8mo ago
  What is this shit? 4D grifting?