Donald Trump and part of his team flew to campaign events on a rented plane that belonged to Jeffrey Epstein

Former US President Donald Trump and part of his team unwittingly flew into a chartered private jet belonging to the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, which they used to travel to several fundraising events over the weekend.

The Republican candidate and his team’s staff flew last Saturday in a Gulfstream jet whose serial number matches a plane owned by billionaire financier Epstein, who was arrested on child sex trafficking charges and committed suicide in August 2019 in a federal prison in New York.

What did the Trump campaign respond?

The former president’s campaign (2017-2021) said that “They didn’t know the charter plane had been owned by Epstein”as reported by the newspaper The Miami Herald.

“We learned who the former owner was through the media,” the campaign spokeswoman said, noting that the jet was only used for one day and was contracted to a company the Trump campaign often uses.

We found out who the former owner was through the media.

Epstein happened to be Trump’s neighbor in the city of Palm Beach (Florida), where the former president has his residence, and they shared social circles, although no evidence has ever emerged linking the former president to the former’s sexual criminal activities.

Why did Trump’s team use the plane?

According to flight data collected by the newspaper, The aircraft is now owned by an Ontario, California-based company, Threshold Aviation Group, which offers private charter services.

Trump’s private plane, a 727 dubbed ‘Trump Force One’, reportedly began experiencing mechanical problems, prompting the pilot to land in the town of Billings, Montana, near Bozeman, where he had planned to hold an event.

After the Bozeman event, Trump used Epstein’s plane to travel to a fundraiser in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Saturday and then fly to Aspen and Denver.

Epstein was initially charged in 2006 with sexually abusing girls as young as 14 and pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting and procuring a minor for commercial sexual exploitation under Florida law.

That year, in a secret plea deal with Florida prosecutors that was later criticized by the Justice Department, Epstein pleaded guilty to the charges, served 13 months in prison and registered as a sex offender.

After the diary The Miami Herald reported that There were many more minors and women who had suffered abuse from Epstein, who was arrested in 2019 in New York on federal sex trafficking charges.

He ultimately committed suicide that same year in a New York jail, where he remained after being formally accused of abusing and exploiting dozens of teenagers both in his mansion in Manhattan (New York) and in his residence in Palm Beach and his property in the Virgin Islands.

Epstein, who federal prosecutors had accused of paying hundreds of underage girls to perform massages at his homes in Florida and New York, where he then sexually assaulted them, was 66 when he killed himself.