Former United States Senator and NASA astronaut John Glenn flew on Jeffrey Epstein's private jet in 1996, according to newly released flight logs from the mid-1990s.
The flight logs belong to a larger set of documents unsealed today in a years-long court battle between Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of Epstein's accusers, and Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite and Epstein's alleged madam of Epstein. In 2015, Giuffre filed a defamation lawsuit against Maxwell, who had accused Giuffre of lying about Epstein's abuse and Maxwell's role in recruiting women on his behalf.
One entry in the flight logs, on September 8, 1996, shows that Glenn, Epstein, and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz flew on Epstein's jet from Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC, to Port Columbus International Airport in Ohio. (The airport's name was changed to John Glenn Columbus International Airport after the senator's death in 2016.)
Dershowitz, who defended Epstein a decade later against sex trafficking charges in Florida, confirmed to INSIDER that Glenn was on the flight. He said the three were flying to a dinner Leslie Wexner's held for his 59th birthday. Dershowitz described the same party to New York magazine last month.
Glenn, who represented Ohio in the Senate between 1974 and 1999, didn't speak much during the dinner, Dershowitz said.
"He talked about politics, he talked about Wexner's stuff that he wanted to do with a charity in Ohio."
Epstein has hosted a number of powerful people on his private jets, including President Donald Trump and President Bill Clinton, as well as celebrities like Naomi Campbell, Courtney Love, and Kevin Spacey.
According to Dershowitz, Wexner had a small group of people over for his birthday party, which included former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and an executive at the Sotheby's auction house. Dershowitz said the dinner was the first time he met Wexner, and that everyone else there knew him already — including Glenn.
"I think John Glenn knew Leslie Wexner. Remember, he was the senator from Ohio," he said. "And Leslie Wexner is probably the richest man in Ohio."
Epstein was close to Wexner since the mid-1980s until around 2007, and largely enriched himself by attaching himself to Wexner's finances. This week, Wexner said Epstein "deceived" him and "misappropriated vast sums of money."
After Wexner's birthday party, Glenn went to his home in Ohio while Dershowitz flew on Epstein's plane back to his own home in Boston, Dershowitz said. Epstein pleaded not guilty to the federal sex trafficking charges he's currently facing in New York. There's no evidence Glenn was involved in Epstein's alleged sex trafficking in his current case, or in the case where he pleaded guilty in 2008.
- Read more:
- Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier, is facing sex trafficking charges. Here's everything we know about what's going on, from his connections to legal battles.
- Unsealed flight logs show that Trump was on Epstein's private jet in 1997
- Victoria's Secret head Les Wexner writes in a letter to his foundation that he is 'embarrassed' he was 'deceived' by Jeffrey Epstein. Read the full letter.
