No evidence President-elect Donald Trump visited Jeffrey Epstein’s private island

After 2024 election results showed President-elect Donald Trump won, an Instagram post claimed Trump had visited the private island owned by the late financier and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. 

The Instagram post showed a world map with the U.S. highlighted in red, claiming to show "countries that just elected a president who has been to Epstein’s island." 

Trump and Epstein operated in the same social circles in the 1990s, and Trump occasionally spoke highly of him. But there has been no documented evidence that Trump visited Epstein’s private island, Little St. James in the Virgin Islands, where Epstein allegedly sexually abused underage girls. 

When federal agents charged Epstein with sex trafficking of minors in 2019, Trump, then president, said he was "not a fan" of Epstein. 

Trump has said he did not visit Epstein’s private island. Flight logs show that Trump flew on Epstein’s private plane at least seven times in the 1990s between Palm Beach and New York, but there’s no evidence Trump visited the island. Many other high-profile people, including former President Bill Clinton, were also recorded as guests on Epstein’s plane. 

Epstein died by suicide in 2019 in a Manhattan jail cell awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. A federal indictment alleged Epstein had, for years, enticed and recruited underage girls to perform sex acts, and encouraged victims to recruit additional victims. The acts occurred both at his home in Manhattan and in Palm Beach, Florida, the indictment alleged. Abuse and sex trafficking also allegedly occurred at Little St. James, according to a lawsuit from the U.S. Virgin Islands attorney general. 

He was convicted on Florida state charges in 2008 for paying a minor for sex, after which he served jail time and registered as a sex offender.

Acquaintances of both Trump and Epstein said the two were friends in the 1990s, according to a 2019 Washington Post story. Epstein attended parties at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, and the two were photographed together in social settings multiple times.

In an interview for a 2002 New York magazine piece, Trump called Trump a "terrific guy." 

"It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side," Trump said.

After Epstein’s arrest in 2019, Trump said he "had a falling out" with Epstein, and said he had not spoken to him in 15 years. 

"I was not a fan of his, I can tell you that," Trump told reporters at the time.

In a September interview with podcaster Lex Fridman, Trump said he never visited Epstein’s private island. 

"I never went to his island, fortunately," Trump said. "But a lot of people did."

Sometime around the time Epstein first faced charges for sex crimes with minors, Trump banned him from Mar-a-Lago, the Washington Post reported.

In the 2016 book, "The Clintons’ War on Women," Trump ally and political consultant Roger Stone — whom Trump pardoned after he was convicted for obstruction, making false statements and witness tampering — wrote that Trump had turned down multiple invitations to "Epstein’s hedonistic private island and his Palm Beach home." Stone wrote that Trump "cut Epstein and his underlings off" when he heard Palm Beach police were investigating Epstein. 

Featured Fact-check

Social Media

stated on October 13, 2024 in social media posts

Video shows former Vice President Mike Pence endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Stone wrote that Trump told a Mar-a-Lago club member, "‘The one time I visited his Palm Beach home, the swimming pool was full of beautiful young girls’ … ‘How nice,’ I thought, ‘he let the neighborhood kids use his pool.’"

Shortly before the Nov. 5 election, journalist and author Michael Wolff released excerpts from a 2017 interview with Epstein, in which Epstein claimed he was "Donald Trump’s closest friend for 10 years." However, the new audio included no statements from Epstein saying Trump had visited his island. The Trump campaign called Wolff a "disgraced writer who routinely fabricates lies" in response to the recording, according to The Daily Beast.

In October, former model Stacey Williams alleged Trump groped her in 1993 after Epstein introduced her to him. The Trump campaign denied Williams’ story.

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request from PolitiFact to comment on the Instagram post’s claim.

More than two dozen women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct over the decades, including writer E. Jean Carroll, to whom a jury awarded more than $83 million in a defamation lawsuit after she said he mocked and dismissed her after she accused him of rape. 

An Instagram post claimed Trump "has been to Epstein’s island."

Trump and Epstein had a well-documented connection in the 1990s, and Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet at least seven times, according to federal flight records. 

But none of those flights were to Epstein’s private island, Little St. James, and there’s no other evidence Trump visited the island. Trump claimed he never visited the island. 

Because of a lack of support for the claim, we rate it False.