U.S. Justice Department records show that Dr. Mehmet Öz, now serving as President Donald Trump’s administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, emailed a Valentine’s Day party invitation in 2016 to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The disclosure is part of a sweeping release of millions of Epstein-related documents in recent weeks, made public under a bipartisan act of Congress.
The trove has shed new light on Epstein’s connections to influential figures in politics, finance, business and academia.
Öz, a former television physician turned public official, sent the invitation nearly a decade after Epstein’s first sex crime charges became public in July 2006.
Epstein, a financier with ties to elite circles, died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
