Bill Gates is set to testify before the House Oversight Committee on 10 June as lawmakers press ahead with their investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s wrongdoing. The hearing will put one of the world’s best-known billionaires in the same room with the panel that has already questioned Bill and Hillary Clinton and is now moving toward more testimony in the Epstein probe.
The committee asked Gates to appear in a letter issued on 3 March. His scheduled testimony comes after the justice department released more than three million documents earlier this year, including material about Gates’ communications and relationship with Epstein, while millions more documents remain undisclosed.
Gates has already tried to narrow the public record around those ties. In an interview with 9News in Australia earlier this year, he said his interactions with Epstein were limited to dinners and that he did not visit Epstein’s island. “Every minute I spent with him I regret and I apologise that I did that,” Gates said. A spokesperson later told the that Gates had never attended parties with Epstein and had no involvement in illegal activities associated with him.
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The Gates Foundation said Gates spoke candidly and answered several questions in detail during a meeting with staff at his charitable foundation. The foundation’s statement and Gates’ public comments both point to a defense built on distance, not denial of contact. He has not been accused of misconduct by any of Epstein’s victims, and his appearance in the files does not itself imply criminal activity.
That is the friction at the center of the hearing. The Oversight Committee is investigating Epstein’s wrongdoing, not Gates alone, but Congress is still using its subpoena power to pull more names, more documents and more explanations into the open. Last November, Trump signed legislation that Congress had passed requiring the justice department to release all material from its Epstein investigations, yet the department still has millions more documents it has not disclosed.
Gates is likely to face questions about why his name surfaced in those files and what, if anything, his contact with Epstein revealed about a broader network around the financier. The committee’s next scheduled witnesses include Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and former Attorney General Pam Bondi in the coming weeks. For Gates, 10 June is no longer just a date on the calendar; it is the point at which his account of a regretted relationship will be tested in public.
