Bill Gates to face questions from House committee over links to Jeffrey Epstein

Bill Gates is set to testify in front of the House committee on oversight and reform on Wednesday as part of the panel’s investigation into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.The Microsoft co-founder will appear in a closed-door session, where lawmakers are expected to question him about his past relationship with Epstein. A transcript of the interview is expected to be released at a later date.In a statement to The Guardian before his appearance, a spokesperson for Gates said that Gates “welcomes the opportunity to appear before the committee” and said that “while he never witnessed or participated in any of Epstein’s illegal conduct, he is looking forward to answering all the committee’s questions to support their important work”.The committee, chaired by James Comer, requested Gates’s appearance in March, following the Justice Department’s release of millions of documents related to Epstein earlier this year. The files included numerous mentions of Gates, as well as several photographs of him, and records showing that he met with Epstein on several occasions, renewing scrutiny of Gates’s past ties to the disgraced financier.Gates has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein and has repeatedly denied having any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.The released records also include correspondences between Epstein and some of Gates’s former advisers and staff at the Gates Foundation. In a statement after the files were released, the foundation said that it was aware of the emails and said that “on the basis of Epstein’s claims that he could mobilize significant philanthropic resources for global health and development, a small number of foundation employees interacted with Epstein to try to secure this potential funding”.“Ultimately, the foundation did not pursue any collaboration with Epstein and no fund was ever created,” the foundation added.In April, the Gates Foundation announced that it had commissioned an “external review to assess past foundation engagement with Epstein, and our current policies for vetting and developing new philanthropic partnerships”. The foundation said the review is ongoing and that its board and management will receive an update this summer.In recent years, Gates has publicly expressed regret over his past association with Epstein. In an interview last year, he said that he met with Epstein several times to discuss philanthropy, but said that he was “foolish” to have spent any time with the convicted sex offender.“Yes, I think I was quite stupid,” Gates said. “I thought it would help me with global health philanthropy, in fact it failed to do that, and it was just a huge mistake.”Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Gates apologized to employees of the Gates Foundation during a February town-hall meeting for his past ties to Epstein.According to the Journal, which reviewed a recording of the meeting, Gates said that he first met with Epstein in 2011, several years after Epstein had pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida. Gates told staff that he was aware of what he described as an “18-month thing” that had restricted Epstein’s travel, but acknowledged that he did not adequately check Epstein’s background.Gates told staff that he continued meeting with Epstein through 2014, even after his then wife, Melinda French Gates, had raised concerns. Gates said that he flew on a private jet with Epstein, and spent time with him in Washington, New York, France and Germany, but “never stayed overnight” or visited Epstein’s private island.During the meeting, Gates also reportedly acknowledged that he had two extramarital affairs that Epstein later discovered, which were referenced in emails released in the Epstein files, but said that they did not involve any of Epstein’s victims.“I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit,” Gates said, according to the Journal.He also addressed photographs in the Epstein files that show him with women whose faces are redacted, saying that Epstein had asked him to be in photographs with his assistants after their meetings. “To be clear, I never spent any time with victims, the women around him,” Gates said.Gates described spending time with Epstein as a “huge mistake” and apologized to “other people who are drawn into this because of the mistake that I made”. Gates said in the town hall that 2014 was the last year he met with Epstein, though he said he continued to receive emails from Epstein afterwards, which he said he did not answer.When asked about the town-hall meeting reported by the Journal, a Gates Foundation spokesperson told The Guardian “this was a town hall with employees, which Bill does twice a year” and that “in the conversation, Bill answered questions submitted by foundation staff on a range of issues, including the release of the Epstein files, the foundation’s work in AI, and the future of global health”.“In the town hall, Bill spoke candidly, addressing several questions in detail, and took responsibility for his actions,” the spokesperson said.Ahead of this week’s deposition, the New York Times reported that Gates has been preparing with help from Jake Greenberg, the former top investigative counsel to the House oversight committee.