“But you’re standing next to her.” — “That is correct.”
Bill Gates on Anderson Cooper 360, August 26, 2026: “I didn’t have a social relationship. I didn’t meet any women through him.” (CNN) CNN’s own transcript: transcripts.cnn.com/show/acd/date/2026-08-26/segment/01.
“That’s all public. I encourage them to look at that.” Bill Gates, August 26, on his Epstein testimony. Taken up: one Wednesday in 2013, from the released record, ending in a question the committee can answer today.
On August 26, Bill Gates invited scrutiny twice in one day. On CNN, asked about Jeffrey Epstein, he pointed to his congressional testimony: “that’s all public... I encourage them to look at that.” To Axios, hours apart: “I do think the record is clear, and people can just judge me on the record.”
Fair enough. Here is the record.
This article is part of my Epstein Files series, the reporting I published as I worked through the federal record in real time. That reporting became the foundation of Shadow Empire: The Epstein Files.
The articles followed individual threads as I found them. The book follows how they connect: thirty-four chapters, in the order events happened, with every claim footnoted to a document at justice.gov/epstein and its federal Bates number. Where an article and the book differ, the book reflects the fuller record.
The rest of this article continues below for paid subscribers. For the complete account, the book is the place to start.
