OPINION:
Poor, poor Bill Gates. The former Microsoft CEO-turned-COVID-czar just faced what he frustratingly described as the “100th time” of media-fueled questioning about his long-lasting relationship with now-deceased — curiously deceased-slash-probably-murdered — pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. And his answer, just like the previous 99 times, was this: What — it was just dinner!
Time 101 is right around the corner. Make no mistake about it.
There’s a reason people keep asking Gates about his relationship with the now-deceased-probably-murdered pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. It’s because his answers leave red flags.
Nobody, after all, dines with a pedophile over and over and over again. And again and again and again and again. And all while knowing of the convicted sex criminal’s crimes.
“Mr. Gates started the relationship after Mr. Epstein was convicted of sex crimes,” The New York Times reported in October of 2019.
After.
“In fact,” the news outlet continued, “beginning in 2011, Mr. Gates met with Mr. Epstein on numerous occasions — including at least three times at Mr. Epstein’s palatial Manhattan townhouse, and at least once staying late into the night … Employees of Mr. Gates’s foundation also paid multiple visits to Mr. Epstein’s mansion. And Mr. Epstein spoke with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and JPMorgan Chase about a proposed multibillion-dollar charitable fund — an arrangement that had the potential to generate enormous fees for Mr. Epstein.”
Interesting.
Or, to borrow a word Gates used in a 2011 email to describe Epstein’s “lifestyle” — i.e., sexual deviancy to the point of criminality and evil — “intriguing.”
Potatoes, potahtoes.
It is indeed both interesting and intriguing that Gates continues to dodge questions about his relationship with Epstein by chalking it all up to dinner dates and meaningless chats. Nothing business about it. Nothing involving the foundation. Nothing involving the dark world of pedophilia or sex trafficking, or gasp, anything related. Perish the thoughts.
“I shouldn’t have had dinners with him,” Gates said in a recent interview with ABC Australia.
“This is going way back in time but yeah, I will say for the over 100th time, yeah I shouldn’t have had dinners with him,” Gates said.
Didn’t your wife, Melinda, warn you about Epstein?
Umm.
Didn’t your wife, Melinda, warn you about hanging around a guy known for placing people in “sexually compromising” situations? — as ABC’s reporter asked.
Umm.
“No, I mean, it’s — No. I had dinner with him and that’s all,” Gates said.
Don’t you regret the relationship between your foundation and Epstein?
Umm.
Nothing to see there.
“There never was a relationship of any kind,” Gates said.
Thing is: The shadows remain.
Gates’s answers don’t match his behaviors.
“Bill Gates dodges Jeffrey Epstein questions during Reddit chat,” The New York Post wrote in January.
“Melinda French Gates Says She Was Upset With Bill Gates’s Meetings With Jeffrey Epstein” and had “nightmares” after she met him, The Wall Street Journal wrote in March 2022.
Gates is a billionaire. As a billionaire, he no doubt expects to avoid uncomfortable situations, to sidestep accountability, to brush off the riff-raff of the media world, to float above the harsh realities of the material world.
But even billionaires should be accountable for actions and associations that tie them to known sex criminals and pedophiles.
When Gates years ago was brought to account in court for alleged Microsoft antitrust violations, he famously and awkwardly ducked and dodged and stutter-stepped and stuttered, then tried his best to stare down his questioners in stony silence — ultimately, damaging his own reputation to the point where his entire brand had to be reimagined and resold, post judicial proceedings.
This is much more serious.
Pedophilia is much more damaging.
And the public and media need to keep hammering for the truths regarding Epstein’s evils and Epstein’s associations.
Dining with convicted sex criminals may not be a crime in itself. But it sure does say a lot about character — especially when it’s multiple dinners, over multiple evenings, over the course of multiple months. After criminal conviction.
Even a billionaire can’t escape that fact. Nor should he.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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