Tech billionaire Bill Gates said he never witnessed or suspected that Jeffrey Epstein was committing crimes and that he did not reciprocate the sex offender’s attempts to build a personal relationship, according to his opening statement before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.

Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft and one of the richest people on Earth, is testifying before the panel as part of its investigation into Epstein. Gates was among several prominent individuals to appear in the Justice Department’s release of the Epstein files. Those documents show that Gates and Epstein met multiple times and that those close to Gates maintained a relationship with the sex offender.

In his opening statement, Gates said meeting with Epstein was “a grave error in judgment.”

“If the time I spent with Epstein lent him any credibility, I am deeply sorry,” he said, according to his statement.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., told reporters after the first hour of Gates’ interview with the committee that the billionaire was “not terribly forthcoming or candid” and was being “combative.” The committee member said he hoped Gates would be more forthright moving forward.

Gates has said before that he was “foolish” to spend time with Epstein. “I thought it would help me with global health, philanthropy. In fact, it failed to do that, and it was just a huge mistake,” he told The Wall Street Journal in January 2025.

His charity organization, the Gates Foundation, commissioned an external investigation into its ties to Epstein in March.

Gates is not charged with any crime connected to Epstein, and he is not accused of wrongdoing. After his appearance before the House Oversight Committee was scheduled in April, his spokesperson told MS NOW, “While he never witnessed or participated in any of Epstein’s illegal conduct, he is looking forward to answering all the committee’s questions to support their important work.”

In his opening statement, Gates addressed recent reporting from The Wall Street Journal about Melanie Walker, a close associate of Epstein’s who worked at the Gates Foundation and then in Gates’ private office. Walker and Gates had a sexual relationship, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Without naming her, Gates told the Oversight Committee that he was unfaithful in his marriage and that Epstein “was working to use information about my infidelities — in addition to many lies that he layered on top — to pressure me to re-engage with him.”

A spokesperson for Gates told the Journal that he “was not aware of the nature of the relationship between Walker and Epstein, their shared motives, or the details of their history together” and that Walker and Epstein’s correspondence shows that the financier “was actively encouraging Walker to pursue a sexual relationship with Gates.”

Walker’s attorney, David Fleissig, told the Journal that she was “a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein” who was in “a coercive relationship” with him.

The committee previously heard testimony about Epstein from retail billionaire Les Wexner, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, among others. Several of Epstein’s former assistants have also appeared before the panel.

Epstein cultivated a network of rich and influential people across industries, including businessmen, Silicon Valley investors and academics. Many of those who appeared in the Epstein files have faced professional consequences to varying degrees for having associated with him.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Lillie Boudreaux contributed reporting.

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Iran said visas were denied to key members of its national soccer team ahead of the World Cup, which a U.S. official insisted was necessary so that Iran does not try to “sneak terrorists into the United States.”

In a post on X, the Iranian embassy in Turkey said “visas were denied to a large portion of the managerial and executive staff, technical advisers, and others” on its team.

“You have now escalated the deliberate and discriminatory treatment against Iran’s national football team to its highest level,” the embassy said, accusing the U.S. of the “worst possible form of politically biased interference in sport” and “depriving Iran’s national team of its right to play in the World Cup under normal conditions.”

Iranian officials are accusing the U.S. government of violating FIFA regulations and breaching its obligations as one of the host countries of what is widely regarded to be the biggest sporting event in the world. The diplomatic standoff between the two countries comes just days before the World Cup is set to kick off and more than three months after the U.S. and Israel waged war against Iran.

A Trump administration official who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the subject told MS NOW in a statement that the visas “necessary for Iran to compete in the World Cup, including for athletes and necessary support staff, have been issued.”

The official added, however, “We will not allow the Iranian team to abuse this system to sneak terrorists into the United States under false pretenses.”

The statement from the Iranian Embassy in Turkey came in response to a post on X by U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack praising embassy staff for processing visas for the Iranian national team.

According to The Associated Press, some of the team’s officials have not received visas to enter the U.S., which is co-hosting the World Cup with Mexico and Canada. Games are set to begin Thursday.

Problems with getting U.S. visas had already led Iran to move its World Cup training base from the U.S. to Mexico. But Iran is still listed on the official World Cup schedule to play its first two games in Los Angeles on June 15 against New Zealand, and against Belgium six days later before heading to Seattle to face Egypt. 

The Iran Football Federation’s secretary-general and its vice president were among 14 staff and officials without U.S. visas, AP said, citing Iranian state television. The federation reportedly accused the U.S. of “vindictive behavior.”

Emily Hung contributed to this report.

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California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Saturday denied assertions of voter fraud in the state’s primary elections, dismissing unfounded accusations by President Donald Trump of “big cheating.”

Bonta said in an interview on MS NOW’s “The Weekend” that there is no basis for the election fraud investigations in Los Angeles that federal prosecutor Bill Essayli said his office is conducting.

“There are no details, there is no specifics, there is no specific allegation of any individualized act of voter fraud,” Bonta said. “And every count, recount, hand count, court case and audit has shown time and time again — not just in California, but throughout this country — that there is no widespread voter fraud.”

Bonta said claims of voter fraud are “only a figment of the imagination of Trump and others who follow that conspiracy theory.”

Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California and a Trump appointee, announced Friday that his office is working with the FBI on “multiple election fraud investigations.” He said he was coordinating with Harmeet Dhillon, Trump’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, on an audit of California’s voter rolls, citing the state’s lack of a voter ID rule.

Essayli’s announcement came one day after Trump declared without evidence that there was “BIG cheating” by Democrats in California, citing the state’s well-known slow ballot counting process.

California law allows ballots to be counted as long as they are postmarked by Election Day and arrive within seven days. Voters are also allowed to verify their identity in person if their signature on the ballot does not match what’s on file. That, along with the enormous number of registered voters in California, means its ballot counting typically takes longer than other states.

That lengthy tally has been subject to repeated conspiracy theories of widespread election fraud, including from Trump, despite a dearth of evidence.

On Friday, an assistant U.S. attorney visited Los Angeles County’s main processing center, where ballots were still being counted from Tuesday’s primaries. County Registrar of Voters spokesperson Daylyn Presley confirmed to MS NOW that the prosecutor was given an overview of the county’s public observation program and a tour of the ballot processing operations.

A spokesperson for Bonta told MS NOW that the attorney general’s office sent a representative to the ballot processing center at the same time that the Department of Justice official was there. The spokesperson said Bonta wanted to have eyes on the ground and ensure “nothing crazy is going on.”

Bonta told “The Weekend” that his office sent its own monitor to the center “to be present, to observe, to ensure there was no interference or anything inappropriate.”

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