Robert F. Kennedy stated in a televised interview on Tuesday that he had flown on Jeffrey Epstein's private jet twice—weeks after telling Newsweek that he had only taken one flight on the late financier's aircraft.
The independent 2024 presidential candidate was among a number of high-profile people who in 2021 were named as passengers on Epstein's jet, which was often used to transport guests to the financier's private Caribbean island, Little Saint James.
On Tuesday's installment of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime, host Jesse Watters said that Senator Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, is blocking the release of flight logs from Epstein's jet. Several minutes after the discussion, Watters welcomed Kennedy onto his show to discuss unrelated matters.
As the topics switched during the interview, Watters asked Kennedy: "You weren't ever on Jeffrey Epstein's jet, were you?"
"I was on Jeffrey Epstein's jet two times," Kennedy responded. "I was on it in 1993… I went to Florida with my wife and two children to visit my mom over Easter. My wife had some kind of relationship with [Epstein's then-partner] Ghislaine Maxwell and they offered us a ride to Palm Beach."
Kennedy added that "on another occasion I flew again with my family with, I think, four of my children and Mary, my wife, to Rapid City, South Dakota, to go fossil hunting for a weekend. Otherwise, I was never on his jet alone. I've been very open about this from the beginning.
"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.
"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?"
Kennedy's recollection stands at odds with an emailed statement shared on his behalf with Newsweek on October 31, in which a spokesperson for the former Democrat stated that he had only "flown one time on Jeffrey Epstein's private plane."
The occasion that Kennedy's spokesperson informed Newsweek about was the flight in 1993 from New York City to Palm Beach, Florida, when he visited his mother for Easter.
"Mary, Kennedy's wife, and two of their kids were on the flight," the representative told Newsweek. "Mary knew Epstein's girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, who learned that they were going to Palm Beach for Easter and offered their family a ride."
The spokesperson added that the private jet trip was made possible by Kennedy's then-partner, Mary Richardson Kennedy, who was friendly with Maxwell. Kennedy separated from his first wife, Emily Black, in 1992; their divorce was finalized in 1994, the same year that he married Richardson Kennedy. Kennedy filed for divorce in 2010 from Richardson Kennedy, who died in 2012. Kennedy has been married to Curb Your Enthusiasm star Cheryl Hines since 2014.
https://www.newsweek.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr-jeffrey-epstein-private-jet-rfk-interview-1849875