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When did Bill Clinton's flights on the Lolita Express take place?
Executive summary
Flight manifests and reporting show Bill Clinton flew on Jeffrey Epstein’s planes multiple times mainly in 2002–2003, with counts ranging from "four trips" acknowledged by Clinton’s spokespeople to as many as 26–27 logged passenger legs between Feb. 9, 2002 and Nov. 4, 2003 (some reports count individual legs; others count multi-stop trips) [1] [2] [3]. Available sources consistently say these flights occurred after Clinton left the White House (after early 2001) and were described by Clinton’s team as connected to Clinton Foundation work; the records do not, according to several outlets, show Clinton flying to Epstein’s Virgin Islands island [1] [2].
1. What the publicly released flight logs say
Unsealed flight logs and later releases cited by multiple outlets list Bill Clinton on Epstein’s aircraft on numerous occasions in the early 2000s, with media tallies reporting at least 17 passenger legs in 2002–03, at least 26 flights or flight legs across 2001–2003 in some analyses, and similar figures in other reporting [4] [3] [5]. FactCheck.org summarizes an authoritative earlier accounting as “26 times during six trips between Feb. 9, 2002, and Nov. 4, 2003,” noting that some tallies count multiple legs within single trips [2].
2. Clinton’s public position and the Clinton team’s framing
Clinton spokespeople have repeatedly stated that his travel on Epstein’s plane occurred in 2002–2003, that the trips were connected to Clinton Foundation business or paid speeches, and that he had not been to Epstein’s private island; one spokesperson described those as four trips with staff and Secret Service on stops across three continents [1] [6] [7]. Reporting notes that Clinton’s office has said he “had not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade” and denied island visits [1].
3. Differences in counting: trips vs. legs, and reporting divergences
Journalists and fact-checkers stress a key distinction: some tallies count discrete “trips” (multi-stop journeys), while others count each flight leg recorded in manifests. That produces different headline numbers—“four trips” in a Clinton statement versus “26” or “27” logged flight legs found by outlets analyzing the manifests [1] [3] [2]. Several outlets explicitly note that multiple stops on the same itinerary inflate the flight-leg count relative to a simple trip count [2].
4. Notable itineraries and dates reported
News accounts identify specific legs and itineraries in 2002–2003: for example, a multi-stop Africa circuit in September 2002 (including Sept. 21, 2002), Asia trips in May 2002 (including a May 20, 2002 leg reported as Siberia to a U.S. naval base in Japan), and a sequence between Oct. 5–9, 2003 that included Oslo, Russia and locations in China [5] [8] [9]. These published specifics reinforce the broader window of 2002–2003 as the period of most recorded flights [5] [8].
5. What the logs do and do not show about Epstein’s island
Several outlets, including FactCheck.org and major news organizations, emphasize that flight manifests do not list Clinton as a passenger on flights to the Virgin Islands bound for Epstein’s Little St. James island; that is, the records cited in reporting do not show Clinton flying to Epstein’s island even as they show him on international legs elsewhere [2] [1]. At the same time, survivors’ claims and other allegations mentioned in reporting have been treated separately from manifest evidence [2] [8].
6. Competing narratives and political context
House Oversight Committee subpoenas and political commentary in 2023–2025 have amplified scrutiny of these ties; committee documents and media releases have been used both to challenge and to defend Clinton’s conduct and level of association with Epstein [4] [6]. Some outlets focus on the manifest counts as evidence of frequent travel; Clinton’s spokespeople frame the same activity as limited, supervised, mission-driven travel. Readers should note the incentives: investigators and political critics emphasize counts and gaps in explanations, while Clinton’s team underscores context (foundation work, staff/Secret Service presence) and denies visits to the island [6] [7].
7. What’s still unclear from the available reporting
Available sources do not provide a single definitive raw manifest dataset in this collection here that reconciles every leg and trip count into a single canonical number; instead, reporting cites manifest excerpts, spokesperson statements, committee releases, and prior lawsuits to support different tallies [2] [3] [10]. If you want a precise, reconciled timeline (every date and origin/destination for each logged Clinton passenger leg), that would require consulting the full manifest releases or the House committee’s document dump referenced by news outlets [10] [2].
8. Bottom line for the question “When did Clinton fly on the Lolita Express?”
Contemporary reporting and Clinton’s own statements agree the flights occurred after he left office and mainly in 2002–2003; media analyses of flight manifests place his logged passenger legs between early 2002 (Feb. 9, 2002 in some reports) and late 2003 (Nov. 4, 2003 in some fact-check summaries), with specific itineraries clustered in 2002 and additional legs in 2003 [2] [7] [5]. For a full, date-by-date reconciliation, consult the flight manifests and House Oversight Committee document releases referenced in the cited articles [10] [2].