Robert Kennedy Jr. is facing fresh questions about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein after a photograph emerged of the Health Secretary partying with the now-deceased child sex trafficker in Manhattan.
As President Donald Trump tries desperately to quell the firestorm surrounding the Epstein files, Kennedy has also come under scrutiny over trips he took on Epstein’s private plane, his late wife’s links with convicted associate Ghislaine Maxwell, and his past association with former industry titans such as Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby.
Photos that have re-emerged also show RFK Jr. at a New York Academy of Art gala with Epstein in in 1994, while court documents show a listing for “Kennedy, Bobby & Mary” in Epstein’s “little black book,” which featured contacts for socialites and politicians, as well as the girls he sexually assaulted.
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Kennedy himself revealed the ties in a series of interviews he gave while campaigning for the 2024 election, before he dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump in exchange for a role in his administration.
“I was on Jeffrey Epstein’s jet two times,” Kennedy said in a December 2023 Fox News interview, referencing the plane widely dubbed the “Lolita Express” due to its use for taking young girls to Epstein’s private island.
“My wife had some kind of relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell, and they offered us a ride to Palm Beach,” he added, referring to his late ex-wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, who died by suicide in 2012.
“I went then, and 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.”
Kennedy insists in the same interview that he was never alone with Epstein, and added that the trips occurred about 30 years ago, “before anybody knew about Jeffrey Epstein’s nefarious issues.”
But Kennedy, the nephew of former president John F. Kennedy, came under fire for the plane rides again last year when he bizarrely defended his association with Epstein by listing other sex predators he knew.
“I mean, I knew Harvey Weinstein. I knew Roger Ailes. I knew... O.J. Simpson came to my house. Bill Cosby came to my house,” Kennedy told comedian Andrew Schulz during a podcast.
The comments were widely pilloried, given Weinstein was a notorious Hollywood mogul convicted of rape; Ailes was ousted as the head of Fox News amid sexual harassment allegations; Simpson was acquitted in a double murder case involving his former wife and her friend; and Cosby was jailed for sexual assault before a court overturned his conviction.
“Quite a guest list!” CNN’s Jake Tapper tweeted at the time.
The Daily Beast reached out to Kennedy’s office to ask about the Health Secretary’s links to Epstein, whose life and death have fractured the MAGA world and become a political headache for the Trump administration.
Neither Kennedy’s senior counsel and long-time aide Stefanie Spear nor a spokesperson for his department has replied.
However, Erik Polyak, executive director of 314 Action, a progressive group seeking to get more scientists elected into office, told the Daily Beast: “Facts matter. Americans deserve to know if their anti-vax HHS Secretary had a frequent flyer card on the ”Lolita Express" with island perks and a commemorative robe for Epstein island."
Epstein was also a known associate of Trump and cultivated a network of billionaires, socialites, and prominent people, including RFK Jr. and members of the Kennedy family.
While running as an independent candidate ahead of the 2024 election, a spokesman for Kennedy told The New York Post that he “adds his voice to those demanding clarity about all of Mr. Epstein’s nefarious activities, including the identities of powerful partners or shady entities who may have enabled or participated in his crimes.”
Epstein died in a Manhattan jail in 2019 as he was awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges involving underage girls.
Maxwell, his former girlfriend and associate, was subsequently jailed for 20 years on federal charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy for helping Epstein recruit and abuse underage girls.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is expected to meet with Maxwell in Florida on Thursday as the administration tries to stave off a MAGA civil war over the issue.
Tensions escalated this month after the Justice Department and the FBI released a memo declaring that Epstein did not have an incriminating client list and that “no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted” in the case.
This outraged conspiracy theorists in Trump’s base who have long believed that “deep state” elites have sought to cover up Epstein’s crimes and powerful networks, and who also suspect he may have been murdered while awaiting trial, contrary to the official conclusion that he committed suicide.
Trump had come to office fomenting those conspiracy theories and promising greater transparency, but has since declared the issue a Democratic “hoax” and hit out at supporters who think otherwise.
“Conspiracy theories have hijacked the modern GOP and now they’re choking on their own tinfoil,” said Polyak from 314 Action.
