Tech billionaire Bill Gates told the House Oversight Committee that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein tried to blackmail the Microsoft cofounder into a personal friendship, after Epstein learned Gates had been unfaithful in his marriage.
Gates told investigators working on the panel’s Epstein probe on Wednesday that in 2014 he cut off his relationship with Epstein, who Gates saw at the time as a connection to wealthy donors for his philanthropic work. In response, Gates said, Epstein tried to pressure him into reconnecting.
“Epstein was working to use information about my infidelities — in addition to many lies
that he layered on top — to pressure me to re-engage with him,” Gates told the panel in his opening statement, obtained by NOTUS. “He was unsuccessful in this effort, but it shows some of the ways he tried to leverage his interactions with me to further his agenda.”
Congressional investigators say they are familiar with Epstein’s pressure tactics. Democrats left the interview saying Epstein saw a vulnerability and tried to exploit it for his own gain.
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“[Epstein] uses that over and over again,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-California), the top Democrat on the committee, told reporters. “He used it with women, he used it with those he employed, used it with other powerful men.”
Gates was divorced from his longtime wife, Melinda, in 2021. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Gates told employees that allegations related to more than 20 affairs had come up during his divorce. And although Gates stepped down from Microsoft’s board of directors in 2020, reports suggest he is still very much involved in the tech giant.
Gates, who appeared for the closed-door interview voluntarily, told the panel that he never witnessed or had any indication Epstein was involved in criminal conduct. He told lawmakers he never visited Epstein’s island, ranch or home. In the opening statement, Gates apologized and said he “should never have met with Epstein in the first place.”
Democrats on the committee told reporters during a break in the interview that Gates provided investigators with names of people who were “in Mr. Epstein’s orbit.” Garcia said that includes former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who earlier this year resigned from Harvard after his name appeared hundreds of times in the release of the Epstein files.
Garcia told reporters that Gates “was around people that were actually abused, and that was recognized in some of the discussions we had inside.”
Gates told lawmakers that he ceased the relationship with Epstein when he realized the potential group of donors that the convicted sex offender had brought together “were a dead-end.” Still, Gates admitted that his relationship with Epstein spanned multiple years, beginning with a meeting in 2011. Democrats said the behavior is worrying.
“Some of his answers show us that many of the men who engaged with Jeffrey Epstein only saw what they wanted to see with their interactions,” Rep. Emily Randall (D-Washington) said.
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Kentucky) said going into the interview that he wanted to know the specifics of Gates’ relationship with Epstein and whether Gates knew what was going on.
Gates is the latest high-profile name to sit for an interview in the congressional investigation into Epstein. Comer announced Wednesday that he was asking the Justice Department for acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to speak with the panel in July. Democrats demanded that Blanche appear before the committee again after former Attorney General Pam Bondi told lawmakers last month that Blanche was in charge of the release of the Epstein files.
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