By Staff, Agencies

US President Donald Trump’s rally in Ohio was interrupted Wednesday by two separate protesters who raised questions about his reported ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The first interruption came just minutes into Trump’s remarks, when a protester shouted, “Trump went on the Jeffrey Epstein plane!” The crowd responded with boos as the president addressed the disruption.

Trump claimed that he had expelled Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida more than two decades ago.

“I threw Jeffrey Epstein out of a club 25 years ago because I thought he was a whack job. That was a great thing I did,” Trump said.

He denied that Epstein had accompanied him and sought to link the financier to Democrats instead.

“He never came up with me. You know who he came up with? All of the friends of the Democrats. He was a Democrat,” Trump said.

The president also asserted that he had been “totally exonerated” in connection with Epstein.

Trump subsequently dismissed the demonstrators as “paid protesters” and “losers.”

The interruptions came amid continued public demands for the release of records related to Epstein, who was arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges in 2019 and died in a New York jail that year while awaiting trial. His death was officially ruled a suicide.

Documents released in connection with the case have named several prominent figures, including Trump, former US President Bill Clinton, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and former Prince Andrew.

However, the appearance of a person’s name in the released records does not, by itself, establish wrongdoing.