Gates Thought Epstein Could Get Him The Nobel Prize

Via The Daily Beast, which broke the story:

Gates hoped the well-connected pervert could help him secure the Nobel Peace Prize, one former Gates Foundation employee told The Daily Beast.

This person said members of the foundation’s communications team were alerted to Gates’ relationship with Epstein and were told it “was a maneuver to try to get himself a Nobel Peace Prize.” They said the tech mogul had even kept some employees on call on prize day in years past just in case he was awarded the distinction.

“We were aware of things that were potential reputational risks for the foundation and the co-chairs, Bill and Melinda,” said the former employee. “Even back then, people knew this guy wasn’t squeaky clean,” the person said, referring to Epstein.

Although much of the dirt on Gates and his ties to Epstein seems to come from Melinda's allies (like the quotes above), other information suggests Melinda was copacetic with Gates's effort to get the prize via Epstein and even complicit, at least insofar as a trip to France was involved:

According to People, Bill and Melinda Gates will continue as co-chairs of their foundation, even as they divide their $130 billion in marital assets, because of their shared ambition for the Nobel Prize. One source told the magazine: “They were really interested in trying to win a Nobel Prize. So one thing that was part of this is, if it gets worse, then it ends that. It seems as if that was on the agenda, and that’s for both of them.”

Bill Gates may have had the prize on his mind in March 2013, when he and Epstein reportedly visited Jagland’s home in Strasbourg, France.

The rendezvous was revealed by Dagens Næringsliv, Norway’s largest business newspaper, in an October 2020 report. At the time of the meeting, Jagland was chair of the committee which awards the Peace Prize, and Gates was a potential candidate for the honor.

The meeting also included members of the International Peace Institute (IPI)—a think tank run by former Norwegian diplomat Terje Rød-Larsen that Epstein’s secret charity lavished with a $375,000 donation in 2017. (Rød-Larsen resigned from the New York-based IPI last October after it was revealed his group received $650,000 in donations from Epstein, who also provided him with a $130,000 personal loan.)

. . . The Strasbourg meeting may not have been Gates’ only visit abroad with Epstein.

In August 2019, the French news outlet Franceinfo reported on a roster of famous visitors to Epstein’s Parisian apartment, which included Bill and Melinda on at least one occasion, according to the financier’s former butler. A spokesperson for Melinda Gates told The Daily Beast that Melinda has never been to Epstein’s Paris home. >/p> The steady stream of revelations suggests the enormous range of people Epstein corrupted via blackmail or other conflict of interest. As the current crop of stories brings up new figures, one consistent feature seems to be the willingness of media worldwide to treat all these post-2019 resignations is discrete episodes that quietly fade awayu after a few stories in local media.

This new episode also raises questions about just what all those meetings between Epstein, Gates, and other members of a so-called "men's club" involved. They are said to have been frequent, and accounts make it fairly clear that they took place between at least 2011 and 2013 -- but when, exactly, did they stop? And were they just the innocent sessions for Bill to bellyache about Melinda? Donations from the Gates foundation were made, according to the Daily Beast story, to the Epstein-connected IPI well after the 2013 visit:

Not long after the Strasbourg gathering, the Gates Foundation granted IPI millions of dollars; records on the foundation’s website show IPI received a $2.5-million grant in October 2013, $5.5 million in March 2014, and $256,968 in June 2019 and July 2020.

The Gates foundation's connection with Epstein, and Gates's friendship with him, likely extended well beyond what's been revealed so far, in my view. All the denials of this, that, and the other from both Bill's and Melinda's flacks strike me as worth not much.

Melinda is a wronged woman, an innocent party. Right. I keep telling my wife that the divorce came about because Melinda started to think Epstein stole a lot more from the Gates fortune than she's been told, and the divorce is the only way to get the money straightened out by a third party, the court. My wife is starting to agree. But this goes way beyond the Gateses.