The House Oversight Committee on Tuesday released transcripts of the testimonies by Bill Gates and Lesley Groff in closed-door depositions before the panel in June as part of its investigation into the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Read Gates' testimony by clicking below:
Gates said after his interview that he made a "grave error in judgment" by meeting with Epstein but denied any wrongdoing as the Microsoft co-founder faced hours of questioning from lawmakers about his relationship with the disgraced financier.
READ MORE: Bill Gates appears for Jeffrey Epstein interview. Here's what we know
The committee chairman, Republican Rep. James Comer, formally requested that Gates testify after he appeared multiple times in a trove of documents released by the Justice Department as part of its Epstein probe.
Gates, who chairs the Gates Foundation, has not been accused in connection with Epstein's crimes and has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Epstein's abuse of girls. He has said the two met only to discuss philanthropy and previously described the relationship as "a huge mistake."
Groff was a longtime assistant who arranged massages with young women for Epstein.
Read Groff's testimony by clicking below:
According to lawmakers who listened to Groff's testimony, she began working for Epstein around the time he pleaded guilty to state sex offense charges in Florida, including soliciting prostitution from an underage girl.
READ MORE: Who is Lesley Groff, Jeffrey Epstein's former assistant interviewed in House probe?
"She arranged young women for massages with a registered sex offender, and, I just question whether she can rightfully and truthfully maintain that she saw nothing improper in that," said Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., who sits on the House Oversight Committee.
The federal release of case files on Epstein also showed Groff replying to email messages.
Epstein gave millions of dollars to research projects associated with Martin Nowak, a Harvard University math professor. In a 2018 email, Groff asked someone about a missing key card for Nowak's office.
"We can't find it. ... it is kept in my office drawer and it is not there...do you happen to know where it is?" Groff asked. The email recipient is redacted.
For nearly a year, public demand and increasingly outspoken calls from the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse have driven Congress to mostly set aside party politics and search for accountability.
Yet even after interviews with some of the highest-ranked officials to ever appear before a congressional investigation, including a former president, lawmakers have little to show in terms of criminal culpability for Epstein's crimes or a definitive acknowledgment of government failure.
Dozens of women have accused Epstein, a wealthy and well-connected financier, of sexual abuse and rape, including in the years after he reached a deal with federal prosecutors in 2008 to dispose of a federal investigation in exchange for pleading guilty to state level sex offense charges in Florida.
Epstein, who was found dead in a New York jail cell in 2019 while facing sex trafficking charges, was accused of paying underage girls hundreds of dollars in cash for massages and then molesting them.
His case has captured the public imagination as an example of how the rich and powerful escape accountability for wrongdoing. Lawmakers took up the cause last year after the administration failed to meet promises to provide transparency on the case.