Simon Andriesz promised more evidence. Then he died.
Andriesz blew the whistle on Howard Lutnick. In his final post on X, he wrote: "Follow me here on X and on LinkedIn. I intend to share more of the evidence and the story behind what happened." He was 57. He died by suicide, The Banker reported on Friday.
Anyone who lives in a democracy should worry when a whistleblower promises to talk and then dies. Andriesz had already counted the cost in the same post. "The personal consequences of whistleblowing, and the retaliation I say followed, have been devastating for my family and me," he wrote.
Andy Agathangelou, who runs the Transparency Task Force and put Andriesz on stage at whistleblowing events, confirmed the death: he "passed away last week." Some who followed his work do not buy it. Oliver Janich, a German author and former financial journalist, wrote on X: "Then he was dead at 57. They called it suicide. I don't buy it." Peg Aloi, a writer and film critic, hoped his "untimely death" would be "investigated and the truth revealed." Neither offered any evidence beyond what The Banker reported.
Lutnick has said nothing about him; Commerce and the FBI did not answer the Daily Beast's questions, and by Monday morning nobody had said they were looking into the death or asked the commerce secretary, again, to resign.
So who pressed Lutnick the last time his Epstein story came apart, and what did he say under oath?
