Over the weekend, Donald Trump traveled to campaign events on a private jet plane previously owned by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The Air Current, an aviation publication, reported the news on Sunday, and The Miami Herald later confirmed it. The former president had been on board his own private plane while on the way to a campaign event in in Bozeman, Montana, when the jet landed in Billings (two hours east of Bozeman) due to mechanical issues, a spokeswoman for Trump’s campaign told the Herald.
After Trump and some of his staff took a charter to a Friday rally, the following day, the former president hopped on a Gulfstream with a serial number matching a plane previously owned by the late Epstein. Trump used the plane to travel to a fundraiser in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and then Aspen and Denver.
The Aspen Daily News reported that Trump, who was scheduled to appear at a fundraiser hosted by the Trump 47 Committee, was on board the Gulfstream that landed at the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport on Saturday. The local paper noted that the charter’s tail number, G-550, matched a plane with the same serial number as Epstein’s former Gulfstream jet.
According to the Herald, the plane was registered in 2018 to one of Epstein’s companies based in the U.S. Virgin Islands, per Flight Aware.
Trump’s spokeswoman said that a vendor often used by the campaign had commissioned the charter. “The campaign had no awareness that the charter plane had been owned by Mr. Epstein,” she said. “We heard about the former owner through the media.”
Trump’s rep also confirmed that Epstein’s old jet was plastered with a “Trump 2024” decal for the trip, and that Epstein’s former plane was only used for one day.
The former president is among the most notable people associated with Epstein and was photographed with Epstein at Mar-a-Lago in 1997 and again in 2000 with wife Melania and Epstein’s partner, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell (who was found guilty in 2021 of child sex trafficking and sentenced to 20 years in prison). After Epstein was convicted of sex trafficking in 2008, Trump has attempted to distance himself from the disgraced financier. However, Trump spoke praised Epstein in the past.
“I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York magazine in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
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