Politics

Donald Trump uses jet once owned by Jeffrey Epstein to travel to campaign events

Donald Trump has been using a jet that was once owned by Jeffrey Epstein to travel to campaign events, it has been revealed.

The former US president was forced to switch aircraft after the Boeing 757 he conventionally uses, nicknamed ‘Trump Force One,’ was temporarily grounded following what was described by the Secret Service as a “mechanical issue” that forced him to land in Billings, Montana.

He has since chartered a smaller Gulfstream that was once owned by Epstein, the disgraced financier who was found dead in his New York prison cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.

The jet was pictured landing in Aspen, Colorado, decorated with the Trump 2024 campaign logo and an American flag.

Aircraft registration records show the Gulfstream jet’s serial number matches one registered to the same size and model of jet previously registered to Epstein’s company Plan D LLC, but with an amended tail number.

Customs records linked to the jet – that stays with the aircraft throughout its life – show that Epstein used it primarily to fly between Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, the US Virgin Islands — where he owned a private island — and Palm Beach.

It is not the so-called “Lolita Express” – a Boeing 727 that Epstein used to ferry young women between New York and Epstein’s primary residence in Palm Beach, where many of his alleged acts of sexual abuse are said to have taken place.

But flight logs released by prosecutors in the Ghislaine Maxwell trial show that Trump flew with Epstein on his private jet numerous times, with his former wife Marla Maples and his children Eric and Tiffany, as well as a beauty queen and a senior aide to Bill Clinton.

In 2002, before there were any public allegations of wrongdoing against Epstein, Trump told New York magazine that he had known him for 15 years, describing him as a “terrific guy”/

“He’s a lot of fun to be with,” Trump said then. “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

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Jack Peat

Jack is a business and economics journalist and the founder of The London Economic (TLE). He has contributed articles to VICE, Huffington Post and Independent and is a published author. Jack read History at the University of Wales, Bangor and has a Masters in Journalism from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

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