Gates, Lutnick, Wexner: why billionaires don’t see child abuse as a deal breaker in business
ALSO INSIDE: Who is ‘Meltdown Mike,’ and how has he been in Congress for over a decade?
Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.
Since day one of Trump’s political career, people have desperately attempted to normalize his absurd abuses of power and blatant corruption – and 10 years later, much of corporate media remains a victim of their own attempts to return to a sense of normalcy.
It’s time to stop sane-washing the insanity.
What Happened
The House Oversight Committee on Wednesday interviewed a third billionaire as part of its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal enterprise, providing further clarity into the world of wealth and privilege that fostered his trafficking operation.
Tech billionaire Bill Gates sat with congressional investigators for over four hours, answering questions about his relationship with Epstein and responding to accusations made against him. Like fast-fashion mogul Les Wexner, Gates chalked up the relationship to poor judgement, allowing business interests to trump any ethical concerns. And like Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Gates denied having a personal relationship with Epstein, despite evidence from both of their wives at the time to the contrary.
While the trio’s answers to the committee were fairly sanitized, filtered through high-profile lawyers and exceptionally poor memories, Oversight Committee member Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ), said the broad similarities revealed an austere mentality collectively held by our country’s wealthiest elites.
“Ultimately, what this shows to be is this culture in the Epstein Class that exists in the billionaire class in this country, of legitimizing people even when they have committed crimes,” said Ansari. “It’s not just about Bill Gates, but all of the other rich and powerful people who surrounded Jeffrey Epstein and continued to engage with him and meet with him and hang out with him. That is what allowed Jeffrey Epstein to continue the crimes and to continue abusing countless other women, even after 2008 until 2019, when he was finally arrested.”
Nearly every person interviewed by the committee who wasn’t a survivor of Epstein’s depravity has been adamant that, despite their proximity to him, they were completely unaware of his multibillion-dollar international criminal enterprise that claimed over 1,000 victims. Even the financial institutions that facilitated and documented Epstein’s money laundering deny any knowledge of wrongdoing, despite paying more than $1 billion in civil lawsuit settlements to keep cases against them from going to trial.
For Gates, Wexner, Lutnick, and Wall Street billionaire Leon Black — one of Epstein’s primary bankrollers, who is scheduled to testify June 26 — Epstein’s criminal history and rumors surrounding his sexual abuse seemed to warrant such little consideration that it didn’t even register as part of standard business due diligence. Gates, who built his fortune by carefully analyzing Microsoft’s startup competitors and crushing them by way of illegal monopolization, claims he “didn’t take the time to “fully understand the extent of the crimes [Epstein] committed” when he sought to leverage billions from the disgraced financier for his philanthropic endeavors.
“It’s obviously really, really troubling, and I’m somebody who believes that Bill Gates has done extraordinary philanthropic work around the world and truly life-saving work,” committee member Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.), told Politico. “But we obviously have to separate our feelings about that from this investigation, and those two things co-exist.”
While Gates sought money from Epstein’s network, Wexner and Black entrusted their own wealth to him, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Wexner went so far as to grant Epstein power of attorney over his personal finances, and Black admitted in 2023 that he helped fund operations on Epstein’s islands in the US Virgin Islands.
Fellow billionaire and Epstein associate President Donald Trump similarly maintained a relationship with the deceased sex trafficker, though his association was primarily social. The pair were known to spend significant time together, and it was revealed in 2025 that Epstein used Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort as a recruiting ground, grooming young female employees and luring them to his neighboring mansion, where he sexually abused them.
Ansari says it’s simply not believable that men who had climbed to such high positions of power could have been completely unaware of the risks that came with associating with Epstein. The freshman congresswoman was in high school when Epstein was first arrested and remembers stories about Epstein’s pedophilia and evasion of justice percolating amongst her teenage social circles.
“I was a child in 2008 when Jeffrey Epstein got this crazy sweetheart deal, when he was accused of abusing girls, children, and then ultimately was prosecuted,” Ansari said. “Everybody knew about Jeffrey Epstein, at least about accusations against him, even if you didn’t believe the accusations.”
Attempts to Sanewash
“I’ve Never Victimized Anyone,” Bill Gates Said in a Hearing on the Epstein Case.
Bill Gates calls Epstein meetings a ‘grave error’ while defending actions in house testimony
Bill Gates Tells Congress His Affairs Had Nothing to Do With Epstein
Far-Right Spin
From COURIER Texas: Republicans held a hearing to defend Turning Point USA from the SPLC. Rep. Jasmine Crockett responded by reading Charlie Kirk’s own words aloud, then asked a former federal prosecutor what she thought.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
It’s easy for individual members of Congress to get overlooked by national outlets as they quietly skate to reelection again, and again, and again. The following is an overview of different congressional representatives you may not have heard of, with fun facts about their origin stories they’ve tried to keep out of the public narrative.
US Rep. Mike Bost, Illinois’ 12th Congressional District
Since taking office in 2015, Rep. Mike Bost has:
Seen his net worth increase from $385K to $478K
Sponsored 140 bills, seven of which have been signed into law
In 1986, a beagle bit his daughter. He drove to the owner’s house, found the dog in its kennel, shot it, and killed it
Got so upset during a debate over concealed carry laws that he smashed his microphone
Fun Facts
“Meltdown Mike” has a well-documented history of temper tantrums that extends far beyond destruction of property and killing household pets. Bost’s 2012 outburst, where he lost it on the Illinois House Floor and compared reading lengthy bills to being a slave. The outburst landed him a top spot on CNN’s “Best Celebrity Flip-Outs of All-Time” list and is merely one in a series of emotional moments for Bost, who is known for screaming, throwing things, and breaking whatever he can get his hands on.
While his love for firearms is well-documented, Bost’s ability to document where his guns are is less of a priority. In 2006, a prized revolver owned by Bost was used in an attack and was retrieved by the police. When they questioned Bost, he didn’t know the gun was missing and blamed a 17-year-old girl who had been staying with him—why she was living with him at the time is also unclear.
Two years later, Bost voted against a bill that would have required gun owners to report a stolen firearm as soon as it was discovered to be missing.
COURIER’s newly-launched Epstein investigation project
For too long, the Epstein Class has dealt in wealth, power, and politics to avoid accountability and deny victims & survivors their due justice. The public deserves the truth, but the Trump Administration is failing its legal obligation to deliver it.
That’s why we’re expanding our coverage to follow the money and investigate the power players in and outside the government. With a new database by Thorian AI, we have unprecedented access and ability to navigate more than 1.2M files and we’re sharing access—and what we’re finding—with you.
Subscribe to The Cover-Up and get one concise, easy-to-read email a week that cuts through the noise with the headlines you need and the breakdowns you want.
By staying plugged in and leveraging our reporting to make your own calls-to-action louder, together, we can turn information into justice.
Advertise in this newsletter
Do you or your company want to support COURIER’s mission and showcase your products or services to an aligned audience of 190,000+ subscribers at the same time? Contact advertising@couriernewsroom.com for more information.
Support our journalism at COURIER
Democracy dies behind a paywall, which is why our journalism is — and always will be — free.
But to keep our commitment to the free access to information, we need support from those who have the means, believe in our mission, and support our unique model.