Staff reporter
Bill Gates, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, has been getting the best help available to prepare for his upcoming testimony to US lawmakers running an investigation on the activities of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, with The New York Times reporting the tech mogul has turned to the man who was until recently spearheading the inquiry.
The New York Times report, citing two people affiliated with the Gates Foundation familiar with the arrangement, said Jake Greenberg – the former chief investigations counsel for the House Oversight Committee – has been helping Gates ahead of his testimony on Wednesday (US time).
The Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee has been examining the US government’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case and called on Gates to testify after the release of the so-called Epstein files.
The tech billionaire came under scrutiny after the files showed that Gates had met with Epstein multiple times. The files also included a claim by Epstein that Gates caught an STD and had asked for antibiotics he could “surreptitiously give” to his then-wife, Melinda French Gates, from whom he is now divorced.
Gates has denied the allegations and has not been accused of any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein. In February he told Nine Network’s chief political editor, Charles Croucher, that he “regretted” ever meeting the convicted sex offender.
“Apparently, Jeffrey wrote an email to himself. That email was never sent. The email is false, so I don’t know what his thinking was there. It just reminds me every minute I spent with him, I regret, and I apologise that I did that,” Gates told Nine.
“I met Jeffrey in 2011, the focus was always [that] he knew a lot of very rich people, and he was saying he could get them to give money to global health.
“You know, in retrospect, that was a dead end, and I was foolish to spend time with him. I was one of many people who regret ever knowing him.”
Members of the House Oversight Committee will interview Gates behind closed doors, as they have done with other witnesses in the investigation, including former US president Bill Clinton and former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
In preparation for the testimony, Gates has not only sought out the expertise of Greenberg, who was until December the top investigator for the committee, but also other insiders, with The Wall Street Journal reporting in May that the tech mogul had hired former Justice Department lawyer John Moran to help with his dealings with the committee.
While Gates’ moves do not violate any rules, ethics experts told The New York Times the optics of the hires reflected poorly on the deposition process.
Greenberg and the Gates Foundation declined to comment to The New York Times on its report. A spokesperson for Gates told the AFP in a statement that the billionaire welcomed the chance to appear before the committee and emphasised he had “never witnessed or participated in Epstein’s illegal conduct”.
Gates’ testimony comes after Epstein’s long-serving executive assistant, Lesley Groff, told the committee on Tuesday (US Time) that she had no knowledge of his crimes, reports CNN.
CNN, citing two sources familiar to the testimony, said in its report that Groff described Epstein as a master manipulator who had kept his nefarious activities a secret from her.
The executive assistant also said that she would have never remained silent if she had been aware of Epstein’s crimes, CNN said, citing Groff’s opening statement.
Groff, who is not accused of any wrongdoing, presided over Epstein’s diary and attended to his travel, meetings, calls, meals and social events.
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 2019 while awaiting trial.
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.
With AP
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