The celebrity doctor, who now runs the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, invited Jeffrey Epstein to a Valentine’s party in 2016, an email published by the Justice Department suggests
The invite came after Epstein had served 13 months in jail for soliciting prostitution from a minor
Dr. Mehmet Oz is the latest Trump administration official whose name was spotted among the millions of newly released Epstein files.
The celebrity doctor, who now runs President Donald Trump’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, appears to have invited convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to a Valentine’s Day party in 2016, an email published by the Department of Justice suggests.
The email invite arrived in Epstein’s inbox on Feb. 1, 2016, with a subject line of “Mehmet & Lisa Oz’s Valentines Celebration.» The event’s location aligned with the address for the home that Dr. Oz and his wife reportedly purchased for $18 million the year prior, as documented by The Palm Beach Post.
The invitation was sent using e-vite platform Paperless Post.
PEOPLE attempted to reach reps for Oz as well as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for comment.
Oz’s email was sent years after Epstein became a child sex offender. In 2008, the billionaire financier pleaded guilty to one count of soliciting prostitution and one count of soliciting prostitution from a minor. He served a 13-month jail sentence in Florida.
In 2019, while awaiting trial on new federal conspiracy and sex trafficking charges, Epstein was found hanging inside a jail cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City. His death at 66 was ruled a suicide.
Dr. Oz at a fireside chat in the National Press Building on Feb. 2, 2026 Heather Diehl/Getty
Dr. Oz at a fireside chat in the National Press Building on Feb. 2, 2026
Heather Diehl/Getty
Oz isn’t the only member of the Trump administration who has faced new scrutiny over their appearance in the latest batch of Epstein files (in addition to Trump himself, whose name allegedly appears more than a million times in the unredacted files, according to Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin).
Earlier this week, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was questioned about his relationship with Epstein during a hearing with the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee. Newly released emails suggested the pair had been in contact as recently as 2018, despite Lutnick vowing in October that he cut off their brief acquaintanceship in 2005.
«I’m glad to be here to make it clear,» Lutnick told the Senate committee. «I met Jeffrey Epstein when he moved— when I moved to a house next door to him in New York. I met him then. Over the next 14 years, I met him two other times that I can recall.»
«Probably the total, and you’ve seen all of these documents of these millions and millions of documents, there may be 10 emails connecting me with him, probably about 10 emails connecting me with him over a 14-year period,» he continued. «I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with that person, okay?»