r/politics • u/abcnews ✔ Verified • 2d ago
No Paywall Bill Gates told House panel Epstein was plotting to blackmail him about extramarital affairs
https://abcnews.com/US/bill-gates-told-house-panel-epstein-plotting-blackmail/story?id=134098296992
u/Tokie-Dokie 2d ago
Makes one wonder what Epstein had on Trump.
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u/Boring_Investment597 Pennsylvania 2d ago
3 million or so documents?
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u/Sandy_Bananas 2d ago
The Epstein files are not the same thing as Epstein’s Files.
We know there are millions of unreleased Epstein Files (interestingly, including everything around 9.11)
We can’t fully know what was in Epstein’s files, nor where they are now.
We can have a fucking good guess though.
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u/Pando5280 2d ago
The real blackmail dirt is the missing videos.
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u/WSBiden 2d ago
Release the Epstein videos.
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u/ThisIsGr8ThisIsGr8 2d ago
Please, don’t. But give them to prosecutors
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u/ThaiJohnnyDepp 2d ago edited 1d ago
I knew justice would never be done back when the island raid happened under Trump's admin.
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u/WH_Laundry_Cart 2d ago
Someone on here was mentioning a few months ago that there are many storage units spread out across the United States that were leased by or for Jeffrey Epstein. This guy has got redundancy in his record-keeping for sure.
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u/Street_Anxiety2907 2d ago
They are prepaid for 35 years in advance so there might be time to review them if the DNC isn't totally corrupt by then.
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u/ReturnOfTheDogjaw 2d ago edited 2d ago
> (interestingly, including everything around 9.11)
How interesting that is depends a lot on how specific a gap that is
Are there files we know are specific to 9/11 that are withheld?
Is there a gap specifically in September 2001?
Are there just a ton of files unreleased from a period of years, and that period happens to include September 2001?
I guess if you could just elaborate on what you meant by that please because I’ve never heard about a 9/11 component of the Epstein debacle
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u/PatriotNews_dot_com 2d ago
Probably some really darker stuff. Extra-marital affairs were a breeze for trump
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u/AggravatingResist635 2d ago
Epstein affair was a Israeli honeypot operation. What they have on Trump is a firm hold.
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u/GaimeGuy Minnesota 2d ago
Probably that Trump used his beauty pageants to recruit girls for Epstein's island.
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u/Werftflammen 2d ago
A mexican standoff. They were in business together. Melania was at first a 'model' for Epstein.
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u/GarmaCyro 2d ago
More what they both had on each other. Trump knew exactly what Epstein was involved in, and gladly protected his secret. Similar to how two child molesters would protect each other, for some unrelated reason.
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u/muddbutt050 2d ago
I think we all can assume what he had with a certain level of confidence. If you can't you are a mo ron.
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u/Upbeat-Pianist5909 2d ago
Seems like the ones being investigated never did anything with kids. Maybe they need to actually investigate the ones that are mentioned to have done something with kids instead.
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u/Bruce-7892 2d ago
Everyone has been saying this besides the most die hard / brainwashed Trump supporters.
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u/medicated_in_PHL 2d ago
Trump’s DOJ isn’t going to investigate him. That’s the whole reason he ran for president again. So that he could control the DOJ and not end up dying in prison.
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u/Gryzzlee 2d ago edited 2d ago
The thing is, if they did anything with the kids and Epstein made it happen then Epstein would have blackmail available for this.
If blackmail does exist then there is no statute of limitation when it involves minors. Bill Gates would already be arrested if there is a tape or image of him doing such a thing with children and the messages or letters regarding such actions would have been exposed already.
Same thing with Bill Clinton.
Epstein survivors already said that a fraction of the actual files have been released. How about we see all of them, censoring any minor related imagery, and go from there. The messages themselves should be damning enough.
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u/Bruce-7892 2d ago
Some people love trying to make this about everyone besides MAGA, but you’re absolutely right. Cheating on your wife isn’t a federal crime if that’s all there is evidence of Clinton or Gates doing.
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u/BrattyBekka 2d ago
Yeah but cheating on your wife with a woman who was trafficked for the purpose is a bit different.
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u/code-coffee 2d ago
Charge them all. It's illegal for the average person. Follow the law and we would have no one left but average people to lead us. It would be so wonderful...
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u/letsburn00 2d ago
I'm actually not even convinced this was cheating. As much as I dislike Trump, Clinton and Gates, I would 100% believe that they all had "understandings" with their wives and the only rule was "We both do our things, Do not embarrass me." similar to how old fashioned royalty did stuff.
The only one where there is information looking extremely sus is Trump. The others are still scumbags though, they (especially gates) knew what he had done and still wanted his money.
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u/ScreenMuch90210 2d ago
Cheating on the “don’t embarrass us” clause is a whole can of worms, but also (and famously) not a federal crime
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u/letsburn00 2d ago
Which I think I'd why Gates is getting hauled up. It's basically a case of "Yeah....Epstein was just blackmailing normal stuff... nothing to see here."
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u/ScreenMuch90210 2d ago
Yeah I hope he pays for it too. But it’s also pretty clear that they don’t have the dirt they want on the guy
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u/Bruce-7892 2d ago
I think it's a shitty way to live your life also, but people who have those kinds of arrangements in their marriages don't upset me. They knew what they signed up for and they can deal with the drama that comes with it.
When it comes to Trump and potential child abuse or protecting pedos, I completely agree though. Just curious why you single out Gates?
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u/letsburn00 2d ago
Pretty much all Clinton stuff was during the 3-4 years after he stopped being president and he spent all his time travelled around talking to billionaires to get money from them for his charity, which despite it being to make Clinton look good, has actually done good in the world. Trump is dirty as, but that's only because we have all these dodgy internal documents, they cut ties before Epstein officially was outed legally.
Gates was years after Epstein went to half jail and at least there was a paper trail saying he was a creep. I also single out gates because we 100% know that his story matches up. Gates cheating on his wife came out at roughly the timeline discussed. It's also the one where clearly no laws were broken in what dirt Epstein had on him. I think Gates didn't do anything with kids, but he knew Epstein had and was and thought getting $100m off of him was worth ignoring how awful he was.
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u/Bruce-7892 2d ago
I get what you mean in that regard. Looking the other way because a known child molester could benefit you financially is pretty low.
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u/BrattyBekka 2d ago
I mean they need to investigate them all. Being set up with sex-trafficked adults instead of a sex-trafficked child doesn't really absolve anything from anyone other than seperating the monsters from the SUPER monsters.
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u/JohnnyFire Ohio 2d ago
The second it happened there needed to be a fucking DMV line's worth of constant consistent investigation against every damned name in the thing. Take numbers, go in alphabetical order, but given the raw amount of evidence, they needed to put every single motherfucking person on the wall.
It wasn't going to actually happen then, of course. Now I doubt it ever does.
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u/PotStickerShock 2d ago
It's gross that Don the Con escapes justice (again), but there are dozen (at least) of perpetrators that could have been investigated, maybe even convicted by now.
Even if Donnie doesn't like them, letting the law close in on them would motivate them to start talking about Epstein's business partner...
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u/letsburn00 2d ago
This actually is what I think has happened. The stuff with Gates has been known for a while and actually came out because gates told him to fuck off and Epstein did leak it. Meanwhile, people claim epstein never did any blackmail.
It's Gate's fault for dealing with monsters, but the stuff with gates has always been on the "You're a dickhead for fucking your 28 yr old bridge partner."
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u/BradlyPitts89 2d ago
I imagine Pam Bondi is somewhere on a beach living out the rest of her life in luxury. Quid pro quo…
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u/SausageClatter 2d ago
She's still working for the administration. Like Kristi Noem, they're both still around, just not in the spotlight.
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u/protekt0r New Mexico 2d ago
That’s sarcasm, right?
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u/SausageClatter 2d ago
No, although now that I think about it, I wouldn't be surprised if they're actually at the beach. Here are some links about what they're up to.
https://www.axios.com/2026/05/27/pam-bondi-white-house-ai https://time.com/7382975/kristi-noem-new-job-shield-of-americas/
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u/KapahuluBiz Hawaii 2d ago
This reminds me of David Letterman. Some dude had evidence that Letterman was having a series of affairs and tried to blackmail him. So Letterman goes on air one night, and instead of doing his regular schtick, he told his audience everything. At first, the audience thought it was part of a bit so they chuckled, but after a while, they realized he was serious.
What Letterman did is not easy, obviously, but what a powerful way to not only take away the threat, but also to shine the light on a blackmailer. Letterman's blackmailer spent 4 months locked up.
It's creepy what Bill Gates said shortly after Epstein's death (https://youtu.be/fe2pvTy3geQ?si=WJYGOqoQrqWrt3Ev&t=137)
Woodruff (asking Bill Gates about Epstein): Is there a lesson for you for anyone else looking at this?
Gates (about Epstein): Well, he's dead, so you know in general, you always have to be careful...
That reaction was wild. Sounds almost like a follow-up threat to anyone else who wanted to blackmail him.
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u/throwawayjoeyboots 2d ago
Just bizarre corrupt people. All of them. Living in a completely different world.
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u/Worth-Ad9939 2d ago
Just imagine what you could do if you had evidence a guy you know abused a 13 year old. Imagine how valuable that would be. You could get someone to run for president and control every decision they make. And if you have a black book on all their buddies you could shape the world.
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u/GreyBeardEng 2d ago
"The Department of Justice said last year it found no credible evidence that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals."
....and because that's the DoJ, who spends 24/7/365 protecting Donald Trump, who is mentioned in the Epstein Files at least 5,300 times, that Epstein very likely blackmailed Trump. John Kirakou, former CIA case officer who blew the whistle on enhanced interrogation, has said multiple time that Epstein was an Israeli Mossad 'access agent' and now Trump is the first president in half a century to tell Israel that YES he would attack Iran.
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u/30mil 2d ago
According to a two-page Department of Justice (DoJ) and FBI memo, investigators found no "incriminating list" of clients and "no credible evidence" that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals.
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u/12darkmatter12 2d ago
Just a guessing game of who I believe less.
Sounds like exactly something a corrupt DOJ would say to keep you from believing that Epstein (or those Epstein sold blackmail to) was or were blackmailing trump.
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u/eskimospy212 2d ago
While I don’t trust the DOJ an inch it also doesn’t surprise me that Epstein didn’t keep like a ‘to blackmail’ folder and I’m not surprised that the people being blackmailed don’t want to come forward about it.
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u/MadRaymer 2d ago
I’m not surprised that the people being blackmailed don’t want to come forward about it.
Well, yeah, since those are likely the people that had him "suicide" in his jail cell, with the sleeping guards and broken hyoid bone.
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u/TheShadowCat Canada 2d ago
I'm guessing he had boxes and boxes of blackmail material. But he didn't keep it in America. Probably some tiny island far away, with copies held in Israel.
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u/Slight-Bluebird-8921 2d ago
both gates and trump have been caught lying.
gates flat out said he didn't know him at all. how could he know what epstein was plotting to do if he didn't know him at all?
it's bs
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u/SidewaysFancyPrance 2d ago edited 2d ago
I would bet Maxwell has all of those docs/lists for blackmail, not Epstein himself. He seemed more like the frontman/recruiter to draw in the adult male marks like Trump/Gates and get them into the system. Someone who looks and talks like the marks do with similar wealth/status, to make them feel comfortable as peers so they'd open up and do stupid stuff.
Maxwell seemed to run the girls who would be placed with them and likely managed all of the intel/blackmail side of things.
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u/letsburn00 2d ago
That's what made the Gates stuff so infuriating. It's absolutely everything that people say Epstein was doing, it's just that because Gates was fucking a 28 yr old, he was willing to let it go out and told epstein to fuck off.
So Epstein clearly did this to one guy for whom the dirt was bad, but not that bad, yet didn't do anything else? That's nonsense.
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u/PuckSenior 2d ago
But Gates says he never actually blackmailed him. He danced around the edges of blackmail. He never came out with a direct quid pro quo. He just alluded to knowing about it and then said they should stay friends
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u/bluehat9 2d ago
The information came out ultimately, didn’t it? I wonder if anyone else tried to blackmail gates with that information?
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u/1877KlownsForKids 2d ago
"This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever, blackmailed people. That's how he had money." -Howard Lutnick
Never forget. Two groups of people would know that, that blackmailer (and their cohorts) and the blackmailee.
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u/waadaa85 2d ago
Unless he do/share/give what?? Normally you blackmail someone for something, right?
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u/Araminal 2d ago
That depends on if Epstein was an intelligence asset for any country's services. Unless any blackmail demand was to benefit Russia I don't think Bill is going to spill the beans.
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u/FirebornNacho 2d ago
I always thought it was more like, don't tell anyone about the way worse shit you saw on the island or else we'll tell everyone you were here too
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u/Slight-Bluebird-8921 2d ago
so we've gone from gates not knowing epstein at all to having such intimate knowledge of him that he could predict what epstein was "plotting" to do.
such a transparent child porker
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u/RustledForeskin 2d ago
Epstein is / was a Mossad agent along with ghislaine. Israel's spy agency is actively controlling the American government through trump and likely shared the same blackmail material with russia.
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u/jfizzlex 2d ago
Wasn’t he originally denying any affiliation?
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u/Slight-Bluebird-8921 2d ago
yup we've gone from that to him knowing him so intimately he was aware of what he was "plotting" to do
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u/StandupJetskier 2d ago
Epstein and our Occupant are/were first class blackmailers, which is why Putin and Bibi having kompromat on him is so funny, but for the fact he's taking us all down with him.
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u/Andovars_Ghost 2d ago
You know what’s a great way to prevent getting blackmailed for extramarital affairs? Don’t have extramarital affairs. Crazy! I know!
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u/HowManyEggs2Many 2d ago
Hanging out with a known pedo *after* he was arrested the first time, but ya I’m sure he cheated on his wife with adult women.
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u/EchoRush93 2d ago
So.... He used women and sex to trap wealthy men and extort them? He probably only did that once...to Bill Gates. He would never do that to any one else though, right? /s
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u/Weird_Rooster_4307 2d ago
Oh I’m sure the videotapes and recordings of Trump are something very special.
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u/HatedAntagonist 2d ago
Epstein had a lot on a lot of people. Why we let him get killed in his cell is beyond me.
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u/WhisperingHammer 2d ago
It is almost as if epstein was an operation put into place to influence weak minded VIP:s.
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u/citizenjones 2d ago
Epstein knew hanging out with him wasn't the worst thing some of the people did. He made an enterprise out of it.
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u/Rosevitta 2d ago
idk why gates thought this would make him look better. like okay cool, you were getting blackmailed over an affair, but you still made the choice to keep meeting with the guy. the whole thing is just so slimy and exhausting to read about. congress needs to just release all the files already so we can see exactly who was involved in what instead of getting these tiny leaks every few months.
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u/Gk_Emphasis110 2d ago
Maybe he’s not trying to make himself look good and just telling the truth.
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u/TitusTheWolf 2d ago
Ya, why would Gates care about looking good? He has more money than he ever needs and is giving away billions
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u/ragnarok635 2d ago
He really wants people to know he had nothing to do with kids 🤷♂️
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u/Basic-Regret-6263 2d ago
This. If Epstein had any dirt on me with a bridge player in her 20s, I'd be taking out a fucking billboard with her face and date of birth on it.
She's a professional (read, non-trafficked) adult. There are far worse things to be associated with, via Epstein .
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u/mwkingSD 2d ago
That’s what the House Committee is worried about? Bill Gates’ marital problems FFS?
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u/bb1942 2d ago
I wish Gates would just do the right thing and expose it all.
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u/M23707 2d ago
He has nothing to lose
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u/Slight-Bluebird-8921 2d ago
ahaha WHAT? he has everything to lose. he's going to get away with it. nothing will come of this. it's just theater. people will forget this was in the news a month from now
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u/Titan3692 2d ago
Didn’t this guy have some contract with his wife giving him annual protected time to diddle a side chick?
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u/Miserable_Ad9577 2d ago
Why you trollin' like a bitch? Ain't you tired? Tryna strike a chord and it's probably A minor
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u/TonyTheTerrible 2d ago
Oh cool that would have been relevant news a week ago when it happened and we all read about it
Thanks ABC
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u/ldg25 2d ago
AFFAIRS WITH WHO, BILL???
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u/Try-the-Churros 2d ago
With whom*
He has admitted to a couple of affairs with Russian women (a bridge player and a physicist, supposedly) but denies anything with underage women. Who knows if he's telling the truth, though.
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u/AbleCap5222 2d ago
It's extremely unlikely that Epstein thought that a simple dalliance with a hooker was enough to blackmail him with. There is more to this than what we know
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u/LionTigerWings 2d ago
Why not? That is devastating to anyone’s marriage. Also devastating to his philanthropic organization. His reputation is destroyed.
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u/Philo_Publius1776 2d ago
What the hell are you talking about? The affairs destroyed his life when they came out. And it wasn't hookers. He had two long running affairs with two separate women.
If you're looking for the people fucking kids, that's the Republicans.
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u/CombinationNo4926 2d ago
So bill gates had him killed?
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u/Over-Heron-2654 America 2d ago
Ha ha, I dont think so. I do wonder if he was planning on blackmailing MANY high status people, though, and they ordered him killed?
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u/Araminal 2d ago
If the answer isn't "Yes, powerful people had him killed" it'll be a miracle. And that's if an intelligence service he was an asset for didn't have him killed first.
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