US President Donald Trump was listed as a passenger on at least eight flights aboard Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet, according to the latest documents released on the department of justice website Tuesday.The information appeared in an internal email dated 7 January 2020 that stated, “Donald Trump traveled on Epstein's private jet many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware).” The email is part of a chain with the subject line “RE: Epstein flight records,” as reported by BBC.
The sender and recipient of the email were redacted, but it was signed by an assistant US attorney from the Southern District of New York, with the name also redacted.Also read | 'Sensationalist': US DOJ dismisses 'credibility' of Trump mentions in Epstein files; nearly 30k pages releasedAccording to the email, Trump “is listed as a passenger on at least eight flights between 1993 and 1996, including at least four flights on which Maxwell was also present.” It added that he traveled “with, among others and at various times, Marla Maples, his daughter Tiffany, and his son Eric.”The email described specific flights, stating: “On one flight in 1993, he and Epstein are the only two listed passengers; on another, the only three passengers are Epstein, Trump, and then-20-year-old” with the person’s name redacted.
“On two other flights, two of the passengers, respectively, were women who would be possible witnesses in a Maxwell case,” it added. Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced in 2022 to 20 years in prison for crimes including conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts and sex trafficking of a minor.In a response to the latest files released, the DOJ said that some of the latest documents released from the Epstein files contained "untrue and sensationalist claims" against Donald Trump, which were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 US election."To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already," the DOJ said in an X post.
Trump and Epstein were friends for several years, but Trump has said they fell out around 2004, years before Epstein was first arrested. Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and his presence on the flight records does not indicate wrongdoing.The email is among at least 8,000 documents released this week by the US Department of Justice. The release followed criticism over delays and redactions and was required under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which passed Congress with near-unanimous support.The newly released material includes hundreds of video and audio files, as well as surveillance footage from August 2019, the month Epstein was found dead in his jail cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.