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Adjacent: that’s well-written PR spin from the Gates’ camp: > “Epstein was introduced to Bill Gates as someone who was interested in helping grow philanthropy
by adrian_mrd 7y ago
Adjacent: that’s well-written PR spin from the Gates’ camp:
> “Epstein was introduced to Bill Gates as someone who was interested in helping grow philanthropy. Although Epstein pursued Bill Gates aggressively, any account of a business partnership or personal relationship between the two is simply not true. And any claim that Epstein directed any programmatic or personal grant making for Bill Gates is completely false.”
Note the part “Although Epstein pursued Bill Gates aggressively” which implies that Gates was a victim or at least an uninterested party in this affair. If that is true, why then cough up $2 million dollars via Epstein? Why does it matter if Epstein was aggressive or not if Gates wrote the check?
Some follow-up questions that Gates should answer to clarify his role:
1. What correspondence or communications did Gates have with Epstein regarding the $2 million donation to the MIT Media Lab?
2. What correspondence or communications did Gates have with Epstein since his conviction in 2008? Best option would be to list all of the times Gates (including any representatives from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) met with or liaised with Epstein since 2008 - including via any intermediaries or third parties and electronic communications.
3. What is the definition of business partnership in Gates’ above refuttal?
4. What is the definition of personal relationship in Gates’ above refuttal?
PR and disaster management ‘gurus’ often wordsmith their clients’ way out of these affairs.
Gates should at least clarify his role here. Otherwise, his position as a philanthropist also seems tainted.
- nashashmi 7y ago> Why does it matter if Epstein was aggressive or not if Gates wrote the check? To respond to concerns that the two were spotted together frequently. This is an answer to a question. Figure out the question and you will understand.
- adrian_mrd 7y agoSure but Gates still wrote the check via Epstein, right?
- liability 7y agoSurely Bill Gates hires big burly men who can enforce his personal space. I find it hard to believe that Bill Gates could earnestly be the victim of such hounding for more than a brief moment.
- tzs 7y agoGates is sometimes surprisingly accessible. Some lawyers I know were in Seattle to take depositions for a big lawsuit they were on. They went to dinner at a restaurant, and then went out to get a cab back to their hotel. A bunch of other people were leaving at the same time, and people going in the same direction were agreeing to share cabs so people would not have to wait as long. They were about to get in to the cab with one of the other diners who was going in the same direction and agreed to share, when they realized that other diner was Bill Gates. Since Microsoft was the defendant in the lawsuit they were taking depositions for, and they were lawyers for the plaintiff, and were in the midst of a fight with Microsoft's lawyers over whether or not they could depose Gates, they realized sharing a cab with Gates was probably not a good idea, so waited for the next cab and let someone else share Gates' cab.
- adrian_mrd 7y agoNot sure if that illustrates that Gates was accessible or that it further illustrates the point that the super-rich (including their entourage of lawyers) travel in small, connected circles.
- liability 7y agoThat Epstein could get himself into Gates' personal space once is something I explicitly accounted for. What I continue to sincerely doubt is that he could do it twice. For the first time, Gates' default allow policy would allow him to get close. But after Bill Gates has told his security team "this guy is a pedo freak, never let him approach me again", would that not be the end of it?