John Phelan, the billionaire art collector whom President Donald Trump appointed to oversee the U.S. Navy, appears to have traveled on at least two transatlantic flights with Jeffrey Epstein, according to a review of records released from the sprawling investigations of the disgraced financier’s actions.
Phelan’s name is listed on flight manifests for Epstein’s Boeing 727 jetliner. The first flight Phelan appears to have made with Epstein occurred from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to London Luton Airport on Feb. 27, 2006, a review of the records shows. The second occurred from London to JFK on March 3. At the time, Phelan, now 61, was working as an investment adviser for Michael Dell of Dell Technologies.
Federal authorities said in a 2019 indictment that beginning in at least 2002, Epstein “enticed and recruited … dozens of minor girls to engage in sex acts with him.” He then paid each of them in cash, authorities said.
He pleaded guilty in 2008 to two charges of soliciting prostitution, including one involving a minor. He was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019 and died in federal custody later that year. His death was ruled a suicide. Judges and lawmakers say that over decades, he abused, trafficked and molested scores of girls, many of whom have come forward in court and in other public forums.
Phelan has not been accused of wrongdoing. He did not respond to several requests for comment submitted through Navy spokespeople. The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The appearance of Phelan’s name in the Epstein files presents a new dilemma for the Trump administration, which has alternated between playing down the significance of the president’s past association with Epstein and calling attention to prominent Democrats who also consorted with him.
Phelan is at least the third member of Trump’s administration to appear in the voluminous documents made public in recent months, joining Trump himself and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Trump had a long-standing friendship with Epstein. He has said that he knew Epstein socially in Palm Beach, Florida, and that they had a falling out in the mid-2000s. Other documents that have been released show Epstein invited Lutnick and his wife to his island estate in 2012; Lutnick has said he distanced himself from Epstein years ago. Neither Trump nor Lutnick has been accused of wrongdoing.
The flight manifests containing Phelan’s name were released in October by the Republican-led House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and appear to have gone overlooked until they were posted on a military-themed message board on Reddit this week. The Washington Post independently verified the authenticity of the documents, which also were reported by CNN earlier Friday.
The Reddit link containing the documents circulated among Pentagon officials over the past couple of days, prompting internal discussion about how to address the issue, said two defense officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity.
The flight manifests list Epstein, Phelan and a handful of other men, including Jean-Luc Brunel, a French model scout who was accused of rape during the 1990s and later of providing girls to Epstein. Brunel was found dead in his jail cell in France in 2022 after being charged in a related case; authorities ruled it death by suicide. Brunel’s name is spelled “Jean Luk Brunnel” in the handwritten flight manifest. The aircraft was nicknamed the “Lolita Express” because, as some of Epstein’s accusers have said, he frequently had young women and girls aboard to entertain his guests.
In 2019, Epstein was charged by federal authorities, bringing new scrutiny to his past actions and plea deal, which had been reached with Alexander Acosta, who was a U.S. attorney in Florida in 2008 and went on to become labor secretary during Trump’s his first presidency. Acosta stepped down from his position in the administration as a result.
The Epstein files have been released in massive tranches, first by the House committee and later by the Justice Department after Congress passed the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act in November and Trump signed it into law. Many are not searchable, slowing the discovery of revelations in them.
Phelan was nominated for Navy secretary in February 2025 and confirmed by the Senate about a month later with a 62-30 vote. He has a home a few miles from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, is known to visit the club, and served as a fundraiser for Trump’s reelection campaign.
Since becoming Navy secretary, Phelan has touted shipbuilding as a primary focus while mostly keeping a low profile in the news media. He has been involved recently in efforts by Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to punish Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona), a retired Navy officer, for reminding U.S. troops that they do not have to follow illegal orders.
Kelly in January sued Hegseth and Phelan, arguing that it is not legal for administration officials to censure him or attempt to demote him in retirement for exercising his rights to free speech. A federal judge this week appeared to side with Kelly, saying during a court hearing that military retirees have historically not been subject to limits on free speech by the Pentagon.
Aaron Schaffer contributed to this report.
The post John Phelan, Trump’s Navy secretary, listed in Epstein flight logs appeared first on Washington Post.
