Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was seen at a Florida home owned by Jeffrey Epstein, according to a deposition released Friday as part of an Epstein document dump.
Documents are currently being released that were part of a 2015 lawsuit launched by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre against Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who has been found guilty of sex trafficking for her role in Epstein’s enterprise. Epstein died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
The documents cover a wide range of sources, and are not a client list.
According to CBS, the hundreds of pages of documents released Friday included a transcript of a 2009 deposition from Tijuan Alessi, a manager at Epstein’s Florida house, noting that Kennedy had been at the house, but did not say when.
Kennedy said that he flew twice on Epstein’s private jet.
The first trip was “in 1993, when I went down to visit my mother in Palm Beach,” Florida, Kennedy said, according to NewsNation. He said his then-wife Mary, who died in 2012, was the connection.
“Many people knew him. My wife knew his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell and they offered us a ride when we were going down to see my mother. I was with two children and my wife … on the plane at that time. I knew nothing about Jeffrey Epstein,” he said.
Kennedy said his second trip with Epstein came “one or two years later.”
“We took my kids fossil hunting in Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. That was the extent of anything that I had to do with Jeffrey Epstein’s airplane,” Kennedy said.
Is RFK’s mention in the documents cause for concern?
Kennedy said he “had no relationship with him.”
In the interview, Kennedy said the public airing of all the documents is a positive development.
“I like the fact that all these papers are being released. I’ve been an advocate for transparency. I think that the government keeps too many secrets,” he said.
“It’s suspicious that the government has been unwilling to release those documents. I think that every document associated with Jeffrey Epstein should be released.”
Kennedy said he was not worried about any revelations from the Epstein files.
“I hope everything that is known about Jeffrey Epstein comes out,” he said.
The Daily Mail noted that Kennedy said there was a time when Epstein’s activities were not widely known.
“Remember, nobody knew anything about Jeffrey Epstein’s nefarious activities till 2006. He was a public figure and a big philanthropist in New York and many, many people knew him,” he said.
A report from Newsweek noted that Kennedy’s story had slightly changed over time.
“I was on Jeffrey Epstein’s jet two times,” Kennedy told Fox News in December, citing the 1993 trip and the one to South Dakota.
“This was in ’93, so it was 30 years ago. It was before anybody knew about Jeffrey Epstein’s nefarious issues. And I agree with you that all of this information should be released and we should get real answers on what happened to Jeffrey Epstein and any of the high-level political people that he was involved with, all of that should be open to the public. It should be absolutely transparent,” he told Fox.
“And I don’t see why any of those records would have any redactions in them. Why would we be hiding that from the American public?” he said then.
Newsweek said that on Oct. 31, an emailed statement from a representative of Kennedy said he had “flown one time on Jeffrey Epstein’s private plane,” referencing the 1993 flight.
“Mary, Kennedy’s wife, and two of their kids were on the flight,” the representative said. “Mary knew Epstein’s girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, who learned that they were going to Palm Beach for Easter and offered their family a ride.”
