"Commerce Has The Pen": Bessent Throws Lutnick Under The Bus Amid Agreement To Testify In Nvidia Spy Scandal

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"Commerce Has The Pen": Bessent Throws Lutnick Under The Bus Amid Agreement To Testify In Nvidia Spy Scandal Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday publicly pinned the failure…

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday publicly pinned the failure to blacklist Megaspeed on Howard Lutnick's Commerce Department, as Lutnick agreed to testify before the Senate Banking Committee over the Nvidia spy scandal.

Asked on CNBC's "Squawk Box" about reported tension between the two over why the Singapore-based Nvidia customer still isn't on the Entity List, and whether only Commerce could have put it there, Bessent said: "I can tell you there was coordination. Treasury, War, USTR, and State were in favor of putting Megaspeed on the entity list for months."

"But Commerce has the pen. Commerce BIS has the pen. And you will have to ask them about their internal processes."

BIS is Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security, the export-control arm run by Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler. Axios reported this week that Kessler was repeatedly warned about Megaspeed in deputy meetings, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the Banking Committee, said Thursday that Lutnick and 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."

Bessent also turned on Nvidia itself. Asked whether higher-end chips had made it to China through Megaspeed, he said "there is a lot of leakage in the system and we are constantly working to close that down."

"The story has been thus far on Jensen Huang's personal foibles," he said. "The real story here should be, did Nvidia know their client? And was there a robust effort at Nvidia to make sure that there was no leakage and that they were selling to what were obviously pass-through shell companies?"

"And I think it's important that anyone at the company there be held accountable for that," he added.

Lutnick, meanwhile, has "proactively agreed to appear voluntarily" before Senate Banking, Commerce spokesperson Kristen Eichamer said in a statement.

"Given the Department of Commerce's central role in issuing and enforcing export…

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