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Donald Trump traveled to campaign events on a jet that formerly belonged to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The former president’s usual mode of transportation, a Boeing 757 nicknamed “Trump Force One,” was temporarily grounded on Friday after a “mechanical problem” forced it to land in Billings, Montana, according to the Secret Service.
After appearing at a campaign rally in Bozeman, Montana, Trump chartered a smaller Gulfstream that once belonged to Epstein, the disgraced financier who was found dead in his New York prison cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for Sex traffickingHe used this 16-passenger jet to fly from Montana to private fundraising events in Jackson, Wyoming, And Aspen, Colorado.
Images showed the Gulfstream G550 jet, now owned and operated by Threshold Aviation Group, landing in Aspen adorned with the Trump 2024 campaign logo and an American flag. Threshold Aviation Group did not respond to a request for comment.
Aircraft registration records show that the Gulfstream jet’s serial number matches one previously registered to Epstein’s company, Plan D LLC, but with an altered tail number.
A spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said The Independent: “The serial number remains the same because it is a unique identifier assigned by the manufacturer and accompanies the aircraft throughout its entire life.”
The Trump campaign team said in a statement to the Miami-Herald that they “had no knowledge that the charter plane was owned by Mr. Epstein. We learned of the former owner through the media.”
The Gulfstream was the last plane Epstein ever flew on. He was arrested on sex trafficking charges when he landed at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey on a flight from Paris in 2019. He committed suicide while awaiting trial in a New York jail. He was associated with several high-profile individuals throughout his life.
The news that Trump chartered Epstein’s former jet was first reported by The air flowa publication of the aviation industry, and highlighted by supporters of the Democratic presidential election Candidate Kamala Harris.
Customs Records related to the jet show that Epstein used it primarily for flights between Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, the U.S. Virgin Islands – where he owned a private island – and Palm Beach.
Trump and Epstein were friends for two decades, beginning in the late 1980s. They occasionally flew together from LaGuardia to Palm Peach, Florida, where both men lived, and were photographed partying together at Mar-a-Lago.
The jet that Trump used for his election campaign this weekend is not the so-called “Lolita Express” – a Boeing 727 that Epstein used to transport young women between New York and Epstein’s main residence in Palm Beach, where many of the sexual assaults he is alleged to have committed took place.
Flight logs released by prosecutors in Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial show that Trump flew with Epstein on his private jet numerous timeswith his ex-wife Marla Maples and his children Eric and Tiffany as well as a beauty queen and a high-ranking advisor to Bill Clinton,
The couple eventually fell out over a real estate dispute, and Trump denies knowing anything about Epstein’s abuse.
“I was not a fan of his, I can tell you that,” he said in the Oval Office a day after New York authorities arrested Epstein.
Trump’s 757 appeared to be repaired on Sunday when it returned to Palm Beach, presumably with the former president on board.
The Trump team did not respond to a request for comment from The Independent.
