{"id":722828,"date":"2026-06-24T08:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T08:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/722828\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T08:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T08:12:11","slug":"bill-gates-told-congress-he-suspected-epstein-contemplated-blackmailing-him-over-affairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/722828\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Gates told Congress he suspected Epstein \u2018contemplated blackmailing\u2019 him over affairs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Billionaire Bill Gates<\/a> told the House Oversight Committee this month that he believed Jeffrey Epstein<\/a> \u201ccontemplated blackmailing\u201d him over extramarital affairs, according to a transcript of the Microsoft co-founder\u2019s interview released Tuesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe never blackmailed me, but looking at these emails, it raises a serious probability that he contemplated blackmailing me,\u201d Gates told lawmakers on June 10 as part of the committee\u2019s probe into the late convicted sex offender.<\/p>\n

In February, Gates admitted to members of his foundation<\/a> that he had had two affairs and said spending time with Epstein was a \u201chuge mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a town hall with staff members at the time, Gates apologized for his connection to Epstein after emails between the two were released, adding: \u201cI did nothing illicit. I said nothing illicit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Gates also told House members in the interview this month that he was aware Epstein had a criminal conviction \u201cof a sexual nature\u201d when they met and that he \u201cprobably should have\u201d dug into the specifics of the conviction.<\/p>\n

Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges in Florida that required him to register as a sex offender. Gates has said that he met Epstein in 2011 and that they had several encounters in addition to exchanging emails.<\/p>\n

Gates, who is not accused of any wrongdoing tied to Epstein, added to lawmakers that Epstein never introduced him to young women.<\/p>\n

After his testimony on June 10, Gates said in a statement that he \u201cappreciated the opportunity to meet with the House Oversight Committee today and to answer all of their questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI support the release of all the files and hope my participation contributes to getting justice for the victims,\u201d Gates added.<\/p>\n

The committee on Tuesday also released the transcript of its June 9 interview<\/a> with Lesley Groff<\/a>, Epstein\u2019s longtime secretary. Groff told lawmakers she never witnessed anything illegal during her 18 years working for him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Billionaire Bill Gates told the House Oversight Committee this month that he believed Jeffrey Epstein \u201ccontemplated blackmailing\u201d him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":722829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-722828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/722829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}