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Howard Lutnick asked to testify amid Nvidia scandal: Why US Commerce Secretary is under fire
After ‘war’ sectretary Pete Hegseth faced impeachment calls due to the ongoing war in Iran, the latest cabinet secretary in the line of fire is Howard Lutnick.
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It's been a heavy week for the Trump administration. Following the Nvidia row, US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick has now been called to testify before Congress.
Lawmakers have called on the commerce secretary to detail what the Trump administration knew about former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's alleged affair with Alice Huang, a Chinese businesswoman and Megaspeed director. Track the latest updates on Nvidia here
While authorities are still collecting information regarding Alice, intelligence officials from the US stated they have reason to believe that the Megaspeed director was spying for China.
Deep Dive
With Lutnick now in the line of fire, two US cabinet secretaries are under scrutiny over their jobs.
Before the Nvidia controversy, US secretary of defence Pete Hegseth faced calls for his impeachment due to the ongoing war in Iran. And Hegseth's calls for impeachment were made just as the Republicans witnessed a major defeat in the crucial midterm elections.
Howard Lutnick in the line of fire
The spy scandal surrounding Nvidia's Jensen Huang has caused White House officials to deliberate on the future of Howard Lutnick's role as a cabinet secretary, Reuters reported.
The doubts raised by White House officials follow a growing number of lawmakers criticising Lutnick over the administration's refusal to add dozens of Chinese companies to a key US trade blacklist. Lawmakers have also questioned whether the government was properly overseeing Nvidia's exports to China.
Reuters reported in June that the Trump administration held off adding China’s AI startup DeepSeek, memory chipmaker CXMT and more than 100 other companies flagged as national security risks to a trade blacklist.
With Megaspeed now suspected of providing Nvidia's AI chips to China, Lutnick has been slammed by many lawmakers.
"Secretary Howard Lutnick and Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler must explain why they have not closed export control loopholes and act today to ensure our advanced technology is not fueling China’s military," Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren said on social media.
Meanwhile, Republican senator John Kennedy told CNN that he was unsure if Lutnick should lose his job over the matter, but added that the incident was "as serious as an aneurysm."
House Speaker Mike Johnson also said there was growing consensus in Congress to limit chip exports to China after the spy scandal led to the resignation of Nvidia's CEO.
Huang has previously pushed to preserve access to the Chinese market and has close ties with US President Donald Trump.
Lawmakers also believe that Lutnick had not done enough to block AI chip shipments to China.
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Representative Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the top Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee, also wrote to Lutnick on Thursday, saying they were investigating the administration's approval of sales of Nvidia's advanced AI chips to Chinese companies "with concerning links to the Chinese government, military, and sanctioned entities."
The lawmakers also questioned Trump's decision to grant Nvidia permission to sell its advanced H200 AI chips to China in December 2025 in exchange for a cut of the export sales, which they called "an unconstitutional export tax."
Axios also reported that Lutnick had stalled Trump's crackdown on companies suspected of diverting Nvidia's chips to China.
As the spy scandal news hit, Lutnick met with treasury secretary Scott Bessent, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, trade representative Jamieson Greer, national security adviser and secretary of state Marco Rubio.
During this meeting, Bessent confronted the commerce secretary about his reluctance to implement export controls, to which the secretary said he would have to "talk to the president," Axios reported.
"This is an ongoing concern with Howard and this issue," one official close to the matter told the news publication.
Lutnick faces more scrutiny after it was revealed that a classified document regarding Jensen Huang's affair with Alice Huang was sent to the president and other officials in May.
Furthermore, Lutnick's close ties with Huang have also been in focus, with an old vidoe of the former Nvidia CEO saying that Howard is the “person he talks to the most in the administration.”
Trump backs Lutnick
Amid the row, the US president has backed Howard Lutnick. As per Axios, the White House defended the commerce secretary by stating that Lutnick was a "champion of Trump's America first policies."
"President Trump maintains complete confidence in the secretary and his ability to carry out the position as the most transformative Commerce Secretary in modern history," a White House official further told Axios.
Pete Hegseth and calls for his impeachment
Earlier this week, Republican Representative from Kentucky, Thomas Massie, moved a resolution regarding the impeachment of defence secretary Pete Hegseth.
Based on the resolution, Hegseth committed at least eight impeachable acts. These acts include waging an unauthorised war with Iran, violations of the War Powers Resolution and allegations of military, and conduct abuse, including boat strikes in the Caribbean (which is an alleged war crime) and blocking the promotion of 50 officers selected for general or admiral rank. The former FOX News anchor has also been accused of ignoring laws designed to minimise civilian casualties, including in a strike on an Iranian school, and unlawfully kidnapping a foreign leader - Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro.
The "secretary of war" stated he was not bothered by the impeachment calls and Trump also backed his official by calling Massie a "loser" and stating that Hegseth won "two wars for America - Iran and Venezuela."
However, the US House of Representatives killed the resolution with a vote of 211 to 204. Despite this, a fresh resolution is expected against Hegseth once the Democrats take control of the Congress in January 2027.
(With inputs from agencies)
