SMILING Bill Gates arrives for Epstein grilling on Capitol Hill after sordid emails about
Bill Gates was all smiles as he arrived on Capitol Hill Wednesday to be grilled on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
‘I hope my testimony is helpful to the hard work of the committee to find justice for the victims,’ Gates told reporters before heading into the closed-door interview being conducted by the House Oversight Committee.
Gates was summoned by Congress after photos and emails released in the Epstein files showed new depths to his relationship with the pedophile financier.
Epstein in one email alleged that Gates planned to slip his wife Melinda, an antibiotic to combat a sexually transmitted disease he contracted from ‘Russian girls.’
They also included new photos which showed Gates posing with young women.
The billionaire Microsoft founder’s 27-year marriage to Melinda collapsed in 2021, with his Epstein relationship a contributing factor.
Melinda said of Epstein after their divorce: ‘He was abhorrent. He was evil personified. My heart breaks for these women’.
Gates has called associating with Epstein a ‘huge mistake’, but claims that he ‘did nothing wrong’ and ‘saw nothing illegal.’
Their contact was mostly from 2011 to 2014 and involved meetings, emails and travel on Epstein’s plane. Gates has repeatedly denied ever traveling to Epstein’s Caribbean island.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates (C) arrives for a closed-door interview with the House Oversight Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on June 10
Bill Gates arrives for a closed door interview before the House Oversight Committee investigating late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 10
Bill Gates arrives for a closed door interview before the House Oversight Committee investigating late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 10
Bill Gates speaks to the media as he arrives for a closed door interview before the House Oversight Committee investigating late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 10
Included in the files are calendar entries for meetings between Gates and Epstein, email correspondence between the two about philanthropic projects and photos of Gates at events that Epstein also attended.
Their professional relationship began in 2011, three years after Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida to soliciting prostitution from a minor, and lasted until at least late 2014, according to the documents.
Epstein was federally indicted in July 2019 on charges of sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors. The Justice Department alleged that Epstein formed a vast network of underage girls, some as young as 14, for him to sexually abuse between 2002 and 2005. He died by suicide in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial.
Gates, who chairs the Gates Foundation, has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein and has denied any knowledge of Epstein´s abuse of girls. He has said they met only to discuss philanthropy and has called his association with Epstein ‘a huge mistake.’
Both Gates and his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, have said his association with Epstein created tension in their marriage.
The foundation acknowledged in February that a small number of employees had met with Epstein based on his ‘claims that he could mobilize significant philanthropic resources for global health.’ They never created a charitable fund together, and the foundation made no payments to Epstein.
Foundation CEO Mark Suzman commissioned an external review in March to examine its past engagement with Epstein.
At another closed-door deposition in February, former President Bill Clinton faced more than six hours of questioning from lawmakers about his association with Epstein more than two decades ago. Epstein had visited the White House several times during Clinton´s presidency, and Clinton flew occasionally on Epstein’s private jet.
The former Democratic president said he had seen no signs of Epstein´s sexual abuse and stopped associating with him long before Epstein’s 2008 guilty plea. Clinton has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
Democrats on the House committee have pushed for testimony from President Donald Trump, a Republican who had his own relationship with Epstein. Republicans have said they have not come across any evidence that Trump did anything wrong during his well-documented friendship with Epstein.
Bill Gates is seen in this undated photograph with Jeffrey Epstein
Following the release, which contained lurid claims about Gates’s sex life, his spokesman told the Daily Mail: ‘These claims are absolutely absurd and completely false’
In an interview on NPR’s Wild Card podcast, Melinda French Gates reacts to her ex-husband, Bill Gates, being mentioned in the most recent release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein
Melinda Gates and Bill Gates attend The Robin Hood Foundation’s 2018 benefit at Jacob Javitz Center on May 14, 2018 in New York City
The DOJ’s Epstein file trove release included multiple new undated images of Epstein and Gates together