Somebody has a sense of humor. There's no way the Trump team would have thought to look into this so this is the leasing entity being cheeky. But, it was probably just a matter of the plane being ready.
Because the reddit user linked to a set of reliable sources for everything except the photo of the jet showing its tail number and use by the Trump campaign (which they provided)
The journalist then discovered that a local news outlet had published a photo of the same jet including tail number being used by the Trump campaign, so they had the full chain of evidence without depending on a reddit user's say-so.
I get that, I just don't see how getting a jet that used to be owned by Jeffrey Epstein matters. He's a creepy rapist, and pretty much everyone already knows that.
* “The origins of the photo aren’t exactly clear. According to u/shiruken, the photo was first posted by the redditor u/ChuckBarley. Neither account responded to inquiries sent by the Daily Dot.” is still the problem as “the photo” is the linking evidence* All of the info was copy/pasted. The author could have referenced their own search, and it’d be easy to do but they didn’t.
Which isn’t to say it isn’t believable, it is, just that it’s conjecture because they ran the story without verifying it.
Edit: looks like they ‘confirmed’ it via an Xitter account, which - is something? I guess?
It's not the only source. That was the person who noticed it and made the connection. The authors then did their own investigation and confirmed that it was true.
The Air Current, an outlet that provides, according to its X bio, “data-driven reporting & analysis on the business, technology, and strategy of flying,” stated on Monday that it confirmed that Epstein previously owned the plane used by Trump.
This aircraft’s old designation was N212JE (note the matching serial number) and was previously owned by Jeffrey Epstein (note the last two letters of the tail number),” they wrote. “The registration history shows it was owned by Epstein’s Plan D, LLC in the U.S. Virgin Islands before being transferred to N550GP, LLC in February 2021. The tail number was subsequently changed to N550GP in July 2021.