Trump 'flew on Epstein’s plane a lot' and was 'close friends', brother claims

Mark Epstein, 71, said there were "so many lies coming out" of the US President's mouth when it came to discussing the child sex offender.

Mr Trump, who has always strenuously denied any wrongdoing in his relationship with Epstein, claimed he had been "exonerated" in the Epstein Files release at the start of this year and said he had never set foot in the disgraced financier's office.

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But Mr Epstein dismissed this, telling LBC's Tom Swarbrick: "I couldn't believe he actually said that because so many people have testified and witnessed him in Jeffrey's office, especially in the early 1990s."

He added that President Trump regularly flew on his brother's plane, a Boeing 727-100 aircraft with the nickname the "Lolita Express".

The jet's name derives from Vladimir Nabokov's 1955 novel about a man's obsession with and victimisation of a 12-year-old girl.

"Jeffrey used to tell me that he flew with Trump on his plane. Trump flew on Jeffrey's plane a lot," Mr Epstein said.

"I was on the plane with both of them at one point back in 1999. I used to fly with Jeffrey back then."

Asked what took place while he flew with both men, Mr Epstein added: "It was just the three of us talking. It was just normal conversation kind of stuff."

He denied any women being on the flight.

Jeffrey Epstein was found dead on August 19 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Guards at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City claimed to have found the 66-year-old unresponsive in his jail cell.

The New York City medical examiner and the Justice Department Inspector General ruled that Epstein's death was a suicide by hanging.

His death, the first to be ruled as suicide at the MCC in 21 years, has been marred in controversy and sparked numerous conspiracy theories.

Mr Epstein believes the circumstances surrounding his brother's death are "pretty questionable".

"If people want to believe the government story that it was a suicide and all the other information we have pointing away, well they could just ignore circumstantial evidence," he said.

Asked why he thought his brother might have been killed, Mr Epstein said: "It's probably because of the information he had. Supposedly they're saying that he was talking to the DOJ about cutting some kind of a deal.

"He told me he had dirt on certain people, but he never told me what that dirt was."