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Which prominent individuals appear on Jeffrey Epstein's flight logs and how frequently did they fly on his planes?
Executive summary
The Justice Department released a first tranche of Epstein-related documents in February 2025 that included flight logs covering many years; those logs list a mix of politicians, celebrities and business figures — for example, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump appear on the logs, and Ghislaine Maxwell is among the most frequent non‑Epstein passengers recorded (flight logs were introduced into evidence at the Maxwell trial and later published) [1] [2] [3]. Available sources do not provide a single definitive, fully‑unredacted roster with exhaustive counts for every named individual, but multiple news outlets and the unredacted logs in archives allow counting of repeated appearances for some high‑profile names [4] [5] [3].
1. What the released flight logs actually are — and their limits
The documents released by the Department of Justice in February 2025 include flight logs, a redacted contact book and related materials; many of the flight‑log pages were earlier entered into evidence at Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial and have circulated in court records and archival repositories [1] [2] [4]. The logs are handwritten pilot logbooks and CBP manifests that use initials, first names and shorthand, so identification often requires cross‑checking other records or reporting; redactions and earlier piecemeal releases mean the publicly available set is partial and sometimes ambiguous [2] [5].
2. Which prominent individuals appear most often in reporting
News coverage and the court evidence repeatedly name a small set of public figures appearing on Epstein’s flight logs: former President Bill Clinton, former President Donald Trump, Britain’s Prince Andrew, Naomi Campbell, Kevin Spacey, Chris Tucker and others are documented in multiple sources [6] [7] [8]. Reporting also emphasizes that Epstein himself appears frequently in the logbooks and that Ghislaine Maxwell traveled with him more than almost anyone else, based on an analysis of the pilot logs [3] [2].
3. How frequently some named people flew on Epstein’s aircraft
Several outlets give specific counts for certain figures. For instance, reporting cited flight logs showing Donald Trump flew on Epstein’s planes multiple times (the Atlantic reported seven flights in the mid‑1990s; the Palm Beach Post reported at least eight flights in different counts) and Bill Clinton is reported to have flown on Epstein’s planes numerous times between 2002–2003 [9] [7]. Analysts and compendia of the logs also note Epstein’s initials appear over a thousand times and that Maxwell is the top non‑Epstein frequent flyer in the logbook analyses [3] [2]. Exact numeric tallies vary by outlet because they draw from overlapping but not identical document sets [9] [7] [3].
4. What the logs do — and do not — prove about wrongdoing
Flight logs establish presence on particular flights; they do not by themselves prove illegal conduct. Multiple news outlets note the logs show travel and associations but do not indicate the age or status of other passengers, the purpose of the flights, or whether illicit activity occurred on particular trips [2] [7]. The Justice Department and subsequent reporting have stressed that presence in a log is not equivalent to criminal activity; the DOJ in other releases has stated it found no evidence of an explicit “client list” in some internal reviews, though that statement concerns different material and has itself been subject to political debate [10] [11].
5. Competing narratives and political context around the releases
The release of flight logs has been politically charged: Attorney General Pam Bondi framed the February 2025 release as transparency, and lawmakers pushed for congressional releases of larger troves later in 2025 [1] [11] [12]. Some commentators treat the logs as evidence of a wide social circle; others caution against interpreting guest lists as proof of complicity. House Oversight releases and later mass document dumps prompted further reporting and analysis, but they also intensified partisan interpretations about what the logs do or don’t show [12] [13].
6. Where to find the underlying documents and verified tallies
Primary sources include the flight‑log files in court exhibits and archival PDFs (DocumentCloud and archived unredacted PDFs) and CBP records; these allow independent researchers to tabulate passenger names and counts if they commit to careful cross‑checking [4] [5] [14]. News outlets have produced summary tallies and profiles for specific figures [7] [6], but differences in methodology account for differing counts; researchers seeking definitive frequencies should consult the raw log PDFs and compare multiple reputable compilations [4] [5].
Limitations: this summary uses only the documents and reporting listed above; available sources do not include a single government‑published, fully unredacted index with authoritative counts for every named person, and therefore some numeric claims in media pieces reflect independent counting methods rather than a government certification [4] [5] [3].