Epstein files expose late sex offender’s connections to members of Trump’s orbit
This is an adapted excerpt from the Feb. 9 episode of “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
In 2024, Donald Trump selected John Phelan as the 79th secretary of the Navy.
Phelan, a businessman and investor, never served in the Navy or the military and has no previous relationship with the US armed forces.
In fact, he’s not known to have shown any interest in the Navy whatsoever before Trump put him in charge of it. What he is known for, however, is his art collection.
Now, is his art collection perhaps Navy-related? Paintings of ships and things? No, it is not.
According to newly released documents, Phelan appeared to have traveled on at least two transatlantic flights with Epstein.
Around the time Trump named him secretary of the Navy, the art world press tried — kind of awkwardly — to sum up Phelan’s tastes and describe for the non-art-world public what he was known for, in case anyone was curious why the president might have landed on this man in particular for the job of Navy secretary.
A number of art world publications settled on a representative quote from a former executive at Sotheby’s, who described the art tastes of Trump’s new Navy secretary as “a celebration of the sexual side of life.”
According to ArtNet, Phelan’s collection includes a video art installation that he displays in one of his homes, which features “50 years of Playboy centerfolds.”
In an interview with The Art Newspaper, Phelan’s wife was asked about the “most surprising place” she’s artwork displayed, to which she replied: “In the living room of our Aspen home we have a 2011 Walead Beshty mirrored floor. It covers the entire space… It is amazing to see people’s reactions at parties when they realize what you can see on the floor — naughty and nice!”
That Aspen home is where Phelan hosted a high-dollar fundraiser for Trump in August 2024, a fundraiser that made news because he was one of the times then-candidate Trump stated his made-up claim that prisons in Congo were releasing all their murderers in order to ship them to the United States.
That was at the Colorado house with the “naughty” surprise mirrored floor, whose owner was soon named to run the Navy, despite having no connection to the Navy at all.
Incidentally, that was the fundraiser Trump flew to on a plane that previously belonged to Jeffrey Epstein. The campaign said at the time that it was all a coincidence.
Fast-forward to 2025, and among the many revelations from the millions of files released as part of the Department of Justice’s investigation into the late convicted sex offender was this headline: “John Phelan, Trump’s Navy secretary, listed in Epstein flight logs.”
According to newly released documents, Phelan appeared to have traveled on at least two transatlantic flights with Epstein.
As The Washington Post reports:
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.
The Post also notes that the aircraft had a nickname, “Lolita Express,” because, “as some of Epstein’s accusers have said, he frequently had young women and girls aboard to entertain his guests.”
CNN was first to report on Phelan’s flights with Epstein. It published a flight log where you can see the Navy secretary’s name listed among 12 other names. No one has claimed there were any young women on board the plane, but six of those names remain redacted.
MS NOW contacted the Navy about Phelan’s connections to Epstein and his time on board Epstein’s plane, and they offered no comment.
Monday marked the first day that members of Congress were allowed, under very strict restrictions, to physically go to the Justice Department and view unredacted versions of the Epstein documents.
But judging by the reaction from members of Congress like Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, they seem just as frustrated as ever about what the Trump administration is doing with this material.
“There were to be no redactions in order to spare people embarrassment or political disgrace,” Raskin told reporters. “We didn’t want there to be a cover-up, and yet what I saw today was that there were lots of examples of people’s names being redacted when they were not victims.”
Raskin said legislators were still waiting to hear from the Justice Department about why certain redactions were made, but said the whole situation “seemed very suspicious and baffling.”
