Bill Gates says he didn’t witness crimes but may have been in presence of Epstein victims

By Annie Grayer, Aleena Fayaz, CNN

(CNN) — Billionaire Bill Gates testified that he never interacted with victims of Jeffrey Epstein but acknowledged that he may have been in their presence, according to a transcript of his closed-door interview with the House Oversight Committee released Tuesday.

The Microsoft co-founder maintained in the voluntary interview, which took place on Capitol Hill earlier this month, that his three-year relationship with the convicted sex offender was strictly professional and that he never witnessed or participated in any sexual misconduct.

But Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia pointed out that the panel’s investigation has shown that some of Epstein’s employees were also abused by the late financier, making it difficult for Gates to rule out that he was never around any of Epstein’s victims.

“That’s a very good point,” said Gates, who acknowledged he saw some of Epstein’s female employees at the end of a meeting on one of Epstein’s planes. He added, “I may have been in the presence of victims.”

As part of the oversight committee’s ongoing probe, the panel sought Gates’ testimony after the release of additional Epstein files by the Justice Department this year raised questions about his ties to the late convicted sex offender.

The panel also on Tuesday released the transcript of Epstein’s longtime assistant, Lesley Groff, who characterized her former boss as a “master manipulator” and said she did not know about his crimes. Groff revealed that she connected Epstein and President Donald Trump, then a private citizen, on the phone multiple times over a period of 10 years, but said she did not know the content of those conversations. Trump has long denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein, as well as any allegations of sexual misconduct.

CNN has reached out to representatives for Gates and Groff for comment.

In his interview, Gates laid out how Epstein attempted to use information about the Microsoft co-founder’s personal life — including that he had been unfaithful in his marriage — to pressure him.

After he cut ties with Epstein in 2014, Gates recalled one instance in which Epstein emailed asking for “reimbursement” for expenses Epstein had paid for related to a woman Gates had an affair with.

“I communicated to my key person, top person at Gates Ventures, Larry Cohen, that we were never going to pay anything,” Gates testified.

Gates was introduced to Epstein in 2011 through one of his most trusted employees, Dr. Boris Nikolic, whom Gates believes told Epstein about two of his extramarital affairs. Behind closed doors, investigators pressed Gates about other potential affairs, arguing it was relevant to determine whether Gates had any other ties to the convicted sex offender.

But Gates and his legal team pushed back. The tech billionaire pointed specifically to the draft emails that Epstein appears to have written to himself in 2013 that include a series of graphic, unverified allegations against Gates and argued that Epstein would have mentioned other affairs there.

“I think that Epstein, when he was writing emails to himself, took every potential negative thing he knew, and some that are completely false, and he put those into draft emails to himself,” Gates said. “And so I think if in some weird way he discovered anything negative to say about me, we would have seen that in the emails that he sent to himself.”

In these stream-of-consciousness notes, riddled with typos and vitriol — which Gates has stated are false — Epstein appears to claim he facilitated sexual encounters for Gates and helped him obtain medication to hide a sexually transmitted infection from his wife.

In his closed-door interview, Gates said, “I never had an STD” but that “it’s possible” he communicated to Nikolic that he was worried that he might have had one.

Upon meeting Epstein in 2011, Gates said he was aware the financier had a “criminal conviction” that was “of a sexual nature,” but still said he was interested in pursuing a professional relationship with Epstein, who claimed he could raise billions of dollars for global health.

To this day, Gates said he wishes he had not ignored Epstein’s bad reputation in pursuit of a philanthropic opportunity that never came to fruition. Even though Epstein tried to invite him to his island or social functions, Gates said he was conscious not to cross that threshold because of Epstein’s criminal conviction.

“I have regret that I didn’t factor that in to a greater degree,” Gates testified.

Gates also said he finds it “confusing” how Epstein was able to accumulate his wealth and noted that Epstein’s New York City apartment was one of the most “spacious” homes in Manhattan he has seen.

Gates said he also voluntarily cooperated with the attorney general of the US Virgin Islands, by sitting for an interview and providing some financial documents, though he did not specify when.

Groff, meanwhile, is one of the most notable members of the late financier’s inner orbit to speak to Congress as part of its Epstein investigation — a ubiquitous assistant who helped manage every aspect of Epstein’s life from scheduling massages to appointments with women to meetings with powerful individuals, as evidenced in the Justice Department’s millions of Epstein files. But Groff’s denial that she had any knowledge about Epstein’s wrongdoing was immediately met with condemnation from survivors.

Groff said she believed everyone she scheduled Epstein for a massage was a massage therapist, and said that she considered it to be an “independent contractor type of situation.”

She testified that she stopped regularly booking these massage appointments for Epstein in 2008, when he served about a year in jail in Florida, but Democrats on the committee looked to poke holes in that assertion by pointing to other appointments after 2008 that Groff booked for Epstein.

Groff, in defense of booking appointments for Epstein even after his first incarceration, told lawmakers, “I would not have known that this was a massage. I don’t know — you’re assuming that I would think it was a massage, but I did not think of it as a massage.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

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CNN’s Michael Williams contributed to this report.