Bill Gates set to testify before Epstein committee today

[0:00] Jeffrey Epstein's longtime assistant, Leslie Groff, denied any knowledge of her former boss's crimes [0:05] during a transcribed interview with House Oversight lawmakers. Groff, who worked for the late sex [0:10] offender for nearly 20 years until he was arrested on sex trafficking charges, testified before the [0:17] committee yesterday and said she, quote, never saw anything improper. She went on to say that [0:23] she wasn't aware that some of the women that she arranged to massage Epstein were minors. [0:29] Her name appears more than 160,000 times in the files released by the Justice Department. [0:37] Meanwhile, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates will testify before the committee today. [0:42] The billionaire is among a number of high-profile individuals shown in photos with Epstein released [0:47] last year. And reports say that former chief investigations counsel for the committee, [0:52] Jake Greenberg, has been helping Gates prepare for his interview. The arrangement is not uncommon, [0:58] but it sparked concerns among some ethics experts over the optics. Joining us now is Democratic [1:06] Congressman James Walkinshaw of Virginia. He's a member of the House Oversight Committee. [1:11] Congressman, thanks for coming to the table this morning. You interviewed Leslie Groff yesterday. [1:15] You were at the table. What were your biggest takeaways? And are Groff's claims that she was [1:22] not aware of anything over the course of 20 years, including personally arranging some of his massages [1:28] with minors? Are those believable? I didn't find her claims believable. 18 years as Epstein's assistant, [1:35] before and after his 2008 guilty plea for soliciting prostitution from a minor. So your boss pleads guilty [1:45] to a sex crime is a registered sex offender. And then for 10 years after that, you schedule massage [1:51] after massage after massage, meeting after meeting after meeting with young women. And you never have [1:58] a suspicion about what might be going on there. And in some of those emails to schedule those meetings [2:06] or massages, the young women or girls are telling Ms. Groff that they have an orchestra class or they have [2:15] school. Now, maybe an adult could have an orchestra class or a college course, perhaps. But it might [2:22] raise some suspicions for a normal person. What was her response to those follow-ups? [2:26] Her response was she never, she trusted Epstein. She felt like he had reformed after the 2008 [2:34] conviction and that she had no reason to believe that anyone was underage or that there was any [2:41] sexual abuse taking place. If she was ignorant of what was taking place, she was very, very willfully [2:49] ignorant of it. I don't buy her story. What do you expect to hear today from billionaire [2:54] Bill Gates when he arrives before the panel? I expect he'll be consistent with what he said publicly, [3:00] which is that his relationship with Epstein was limited. Epstein was hoping that he would set up [3:06] a donor-advised fund. He hoped that Epstein would recruit others for the Gates Foundation philanthropic [3:13] work. I think we're going to be asking tough questions about the nature and extent of that [3:18] relationship. There are some strange elements to it where Epstein learns of this affair Gates has with [3:24] the Russian woman and clearly tries to use that as leverage over Gates. Epstein begins to make [3:33] payments to the woman and then ask Gates for reimbursement of those payments. This is in the [3:38] files. We don't know how Gates responded to that request from Epstein. So there are, I think, [3:43] some really important questions we're going to need to ask today. And then committee chairman James [3:48] Comer has said that he doesn't believe that Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general whom his former [3:54] boss Pam Bondi has said is responsible for the extremely messy and inadequate release of the [4:00] Epstein files doesn't need to become, to come before Congress and your committee to answer any [4:06] questions about that, especially in the midst of his appointment to permanent attorney general. [4:12] When I heard chairman Comer say that yesterday, I thought he must have [4:16] caught this Trump syndrome and maybe he fell asleep during our interview with Pam Bondi [4:20] because when Democrats asked Pam Bondi questions, her response was, you should talk to Todd Blanche. [4:26] When Republicans asked Pam Bondi questions, her response was, you should talk to Todd Blanche. [4:30] He knows the answers to these questions. So for chairman Comer to have forgotten about that [4:37] is kind of astounding to me. Quite frankly, I see it as part of this Trump administration coverup. [4:42] Anytime this investigation gets close to someone who's still in the Trump administration, [4:47] remember Pam Bondi came in after she got fired by Trump. Bill Barr came in after he was no longer [4:54] in the Trump administration. Chairman Comer is unwilling to really take on the Trump administration [4:59] on behalf of the survivors who are demanding accountability and transparency. [5:03] Any other key takeaways from that conversation with Pam Bondi about her role? [5:08] You know, I think the key element of her role as she explained it to us was ignorance. [5:17] She didn't seem to know the details. We asked her some tough questions about the July 2025 memo where [5:24] essentially the Department of Justice said case closed, nothing to see her here. She evaded [5:30] questions about whether FBI personnel reviewing the files were instructed to flag mentions of Donald [5:38] Trump, which has been widely reported. Whistleblowers have shared it with Congress. She evaded those [5:45] questions clear. She didn't want to answer that. It's quite clear to me that that happened. We know [5:50] based on reporting that she went to Donald Trump and said, Mr. President, you need to know you're in the [5:55] files many, many times. How did that process play out? I'd like to ask Todd Blanch those questions as well. [6:00] Yeah. Figuring out also Donald Trump's role and whether or not any of these directives came directly [6:07] from him is something that I'll be very interested to find out about that. I'm sure Todd Blanch will be [6:11] asked about by, hopefully, your Democratic colleagues in the Senate. But Democratic [6:15] Congressman James Watkinshaw of Virginia, thank you so much for joining us this morning.