LINCOLN —  Nebraska U.S. Senate candidate Dan Osborn planned a fundraiser this week in Washington, D.C. — until he didn’t. 

Osborn, a registered nonpartisan, abruptly canceled the fundraiser planned for Tuesday after social media and campaign chatter questioned the involvement of one co-host, Dana Chasin, a long time Democratic donor who was mentioned in the Jeffrey Epstein files as allegedly transporting young girls for the late convicted offender, as was first reported by Politico.

Chasin, a Rockefeller heir, advised Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the campaigns of former ​​South Dakota U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson and former Montana U.S. Sen. Jon Tester. 

Osborn’s campaign said it canceled the event as soon as the team learned of Chasin’s alleged ties to Epstein. Osborn and his campaign directed the Examiner to what they told Politico. 

The campaign said, “Anyone who hurt kids or engaged in other illegal activity needs to be arrested and prosecuted.” 

Will Coup, a campaign spokesperson for Osborn’s opponent, U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., said, “Osborn cancelled his fundraiser because he got caught, not because he cares about victims.”

Chasin’s name appears in a March 2024 email to the Justice Department by attorney Jeanne Christensen. In the note, Christensen states that her client was flown by Chasin’s private plane to Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse for sex with powerful men, Politico reported. The email, which details allegations of sexual abuse, also mentions a second flight with Chasin but makes no accusation against him, according to Politico. The story says Chasin did not respond to requests for comment.

This isn’t the first time Epstein files have been brought up in Nebraska’s Senate race 

Osborn has attacked Ricketts for previously “voting against” the release of the Epstein files, asking in a campaign press release, “why it’s taken Ricketts so long to get on board,” to release the files of the late convicted offender. 

Ricketts said in July of last year that Espstein’s files  “fall below” other priorities of the Senate, saying, “right now, in the U.S. Senate, we’ve got to focus on these big issues for the country.”

Ricketts voted last year to kill a Democratic motion in the Senate that would have forced the Justice Department to release the Epstein files as part of the 2026 national defense authorization. Once an Epstein-related House measure overcame months of House GOP and White House pressure and cleared the procedural hurdle, Ricketts did vote with the rest of the state’s federal delegation for the separate Epstein Files Transparency Act.

Ricketts said after the vote that he had “long pushed for transparency and the release of the Epstein files.”

The general election in the Senate race is Nov. 3.

This story was published by Nebraska Examiner, an editorially independent newsroom providing a hard-hitting, daily flow of news. Read the original article: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2026/02/11/senate-candidate-dan-osborn-cancels-d-c-fundraiser-after-a-co-hosts-alleged-epstein-ties-surfaced/