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Something remarkable happened on Capitol Hill this month, and it almost got lost in the daily avalanche of headlines. Bill Gates — yes, that Bill Gates, the cardigan-wearing polio-eradicating technologist — sat before the House Oversight Committee and testified that Jeffrey Epstein had, in all likelihood, been rehearsing how to blackmail him.
That's worth thinking about for a moment.
Gates told lawmakers on June 10 that he believed Epstein had, "contemplated blackmailing," him over extramarital affairs. [NBC News] The transcript of that closed-door session was released publicly on June 24th, and the details are genuinely strange. Epstein allegedly used an adviser to send veiled threats, appeared to coach that adviser on how to potentially blackmail Gates, and mixed fact and fiction to leverage compromising information against the Microsoft co-founder. [ABC News]
The keyword in all of this is contemplated. Gates himself was careful to clarify: "I was not blackmailed, but you know, as you look at these emails, you know, it looks like Mr. Epstein's brainstorming was going in that direction." [People Daily] The draft emails — written by Epstein to himself, apparently — referenced Gates's affairs and made an additional claim that Gates had contracted a sexually transmitted disease. Gates denied that claim multiple times, though he acknowledged he might have once expressed concern about having one to Epstein — a worry Epstein then apparently converted into a lie for leverage purposes. [TheWrap]
So was this blackmail? The honest answer seems to be: almost, maybe, in the sense that a loaded gun pointed at someone who doesn't know the gun is there is still a loaded gun.
But—does this change anything politically?
The DOJ issued a memo last July stating there was, "no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions." [NPR] Gates's testimony doesn't technically contradict that finding — since the blackmail was never executed — but it does complicate the loose ends the memo seemed designed to sure up. It implies another follow-on question: if Epstein was actively rehearsing blackmail schemes against one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the world, what was he doing with everyone else in his orbit?
Democratic members of the committee noted that Gates knew Epstein had already been convicted of sex crimes when their relationship began, and characterized Gates's description of why he maintained the connection as essentially treating Epstein as a, "ticket to getting more money to his foundation." [The Daily Beast] That framing — using a convicted predator as a philanthropic fundraising vehicle — is its own uncomfortable thread, separate from the blackmail question entirely.
What Gates's testimony does, politically, is inject a named, credible, first-person account into a space that has been dominated almost entirely by speculation, redacted documents, and anonymous sourcing. He's not alleging a conspiracy. He's describing, in measured legal language, a dynamic that many people have long suspected exists: that Epstein collected damaging information on powerful people and held it, like a card he might or might not choose to play.
Does that validate every wild theory circulating online? No. Does it suggest the DOJ's tidy conclusion deserves more scrutiny than the memo's confident tone implied? That feels like the harder question to dismiss.
Gates said he supports releasing all the files. One wonders what else, in those files, is similarly almost-a-thing.
