by WorldTribune Staff, May 11, 2023
Investor and longtime shareholder activist Peter Flaherty was cut off from speaking and arrested at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting on May 6 after he slammed Berkshire chairman and CEO Warren Buffet’s funding of Bill Gates’s “woke” philanthropy and then began to zero in on Gates’s close ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Meanwhile, officials in the U.S. Virgin Islands say they have been unable to subpoena Google co-founder Larry Page over potential ties to Epstein because he cannot be physically located, federal court filings reveal.
At the shareholders meeting in Omaha and before he even stepped to the mic to speak, Flaherty, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, had already reportedly infuriated Buffet and the Berkshire Hathaway hierarchy as the NLPC was the sponsor of Proposal #8 to “require hereafter that two separate people hold the office of the Chairman and the office of the CEO.”
In support of the resolution for an independent chair, Flaherty attempted to assert that Berkshire “would be less identified with Buffett’s personal political activities,” citing Buffet’s support for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as a leading factor.
“Resolution proponents were allowed three minutes each to speak in support of their proposals,” the NLPC noted in a May 8 press release. “Three other proponents spoke before Flaherty without interruption, including Michael Frerichs, Treasurer of Illinois.”
“I apparently touched the third rail of billionaire politics when I mentioned Jeffrey Epstein’s name,” Flaherty told The Daily Signal. “I’ve been involved in shareholder activism for 19 years, and I have never before had my mic cut and I was never before arrested.”
One minutes into his remarks, Flaherty was approached and interrupted at the microphone by Berkshire official Cathy Woollums, who reportedly (it was not audible through the sound system) told Flaherty that he should stay “on topic.”
Flaherty responded: “You are not going to censor what I say, ma’am. I’m very sorry. And I appeal to the Chair (occupied by Buffett) that I be allowed to continue. Sir?”
Buffett stated: “You may continue but under the three-minute limitation.” Flaherty replied, “Of course,” and resumed speaking at the 1:28 mark until the 2:04 mark when his mic went dead.
At the 1:55 mark, “Buffett attempted to start talking over Flaherty and appeared to give direction to other persons in the hall,” the press release said. “This portion of Flaherty’s remarks concerned Bill Gates’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.”
At that point, two representatives of Clark International Security approached Flaherty, who was told to leave or be arrested. Flaherty replied that he would leave when he finished his statement.
“At this point, Flaherty was not fully aware that his mic had been cut, was still under the three-minute limitation, and had already received a favorable ruling from the chair,” the press release said.
A Clark representative called in a uniformed Omaha police officer who took Flaherty by the arm, advised him that he was under arrest, and led him from the arena. Flaherty was transported by Omaha police to the Douglas County Corrections Center where he was searched, handcuffed, and charged with criminal trespass.
Flaherty, who has regularly confronted the leadership of America’s largest corporations, slammed his unprecedented arrest and said Buffet had “no right to silence me.”
“I was treated like any other criminal, fingerprinted, handcuffed,” Flaherty said. “I’ve always been courteous with decorum at the annual shareholder meetings. I didn’t raise my voice. I was not disruptive.”
Arrest documents show Flaherty was charged with refusing to comply with a request to leave. He was released on a $250 bond and is expected back in court on May 22.
Before he was removed from the meeting, Flaherty pointed out within the time he was allotted to speak that Buffet had “donated tens of billions to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,” adding: “If ‘woke’ culture is a disease, then philanthropy is the virus. The Gates Foundation bankrolls the teaching of Critical Race Theory around the country, including that math is inherently racist.”
Flaherty continued: “The Gates Foundation offers a Gender Identity Toolbox which asserts that gender is the result of ‘socially and culturally constructed ideas.’ This is a lie. Gender is not a cultural construct. It is a genetic and biological fact.”
After being interrupted by Woolums and allowed to continue by Buffet, Flaherty said: “We know how much Bill Gates cares about children. He met and traveled with Jeffrey Epstein many times after Epstein was convicted of sex crimes.”
Flaherty continued: “The Gates Foundation had a huge influence over the COVID response fiasco. Bill Gates defended China’s Covid policies and still discounts the possibility that the virus originated from a lab, even though U.S. intelligence agencies disagree. The Gates Foundation may be the largest single donor to the ‘dark money’ machine known as Arabella Associates. It funds causes like defunding the police that are making American cities unlivable. Money goes, too, to groups conducting…”
At that point, 2:04 into his comments, Flaherty’s mic was cut off.
In 2008, after Epstein was accused of sexually abusing female minors in Florida, he reached a deal with federal prosecutors. Beginning in 2011, Gates met with Epstein on numerous occasions – including at least three times at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse, according to The New York Times.
Epstein had served jail time for soliciting prostitution from a minor and was required to register as a sex offender before he first met the Microsoft founder. Gates has admitted dining with Epstein for philanthropic reasons, describing those meetings as a “mistake.”
Melinda French Gates cited her now-ex-husband’s meetings with Epstein when she spoke with CBS last year about the various factors that led to her divorce from Bill Gates.
Meanwhile, the multiple names in the late Epstein’s rolodex continue to surface as the disappearance of Google’s Larry Page illustrates.
A motion filed by the attorney general for the U.S. Virgin Islands said investigators tried to identify a physical address at which Page could be personally summoned to appear in a court.
After identifying four possible addresses, none of which were “valid,” prosecutors are requesting the federal government allow Page to be summoned via Alphabet, Google’s parent company, as he is still a member of its board.
The motion to subpoena Page by “alternative” means was filed on May 4 and makes up part of a case in which the Virgin Islands alleges JPMorgan facilitated Epstein’s sex trafficking ring by handling his payments to recruiters and victims.
“Larry Page — the co-founder and co-owner of Alphabet Inc. (Google LLC’s parent company) — is a high-net-worth individual who Epstein may have referred or attempted to refer to JPMorgan,” a filing in the case reads.
Daily Mail Online noted: “Page’s whereabouts are largely unknown, though he was said in December to have spent the bulk of the Covid pandemic on one of his growing number of private islands — some of which are within the U.S. Virgin Islands.”
Page purchased Hans Lollik and its smaller neighboring island, Little Hans Lollik, in 2014 for $23 million.
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