Why Donald Trump flew to campaign events on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane last weekend

Donald Trump’s campaign confirmed the former president chartered a private jet this weekend that once belonged to Jeffrey Epstein, but said he did so by accident.

A campaign official told The Daily Beast on Monday afternoon that Trump and his staff had “no idea” the Gulfstream G550 was once owned by one of the country’s most infamous sex traffickers. The official said the jet was provided to the campaign by a charter flight company.

“The campaign had absolutely no idea the aircraft we rented was previously owned by Mr. Epstein,” the official said, adding that Trump’s advisers only learned of the jet’s shady past once journalists contacted them Monday.

Trump’s camp said he took only one flight on the jet—a relatively short, 363 mile hop from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to Aspen, Colorado, where he was attending fundraisers on the campaign trail. He flew back to Florida on Saturday night in a separate chartered plane as his private aircraft, Trump Force One, was still undergoing repairs in Montana.