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his view that only the Gates Foundation has real experience in the vast complexities of giving away “hyper wealth.” That evening, Epstein, preternaturally responsive to both the price of oil and to the politics of the Middle East, entertains a delegation from Qatar, including Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim, the foreign minister. Hamad lives across the street in a similarly furnished house—he and Epstein have the same decorator. Epstein, in his relaxed and amused manner, keeps prodding: “Why are you financing the bad guys? What do you get out of that?” The Qatarians, in some mild diplomatic discomfort, seem most worried that their bid for the World Cup might be compromised by bribery allegations. At 9 the next morning, Epstein is joined for breakfast in the dining room by Reid Weingarten, who’s represented, among other fat cats in trouble, Worldcom’s Bernie Ebbers and Goldman Sachs’s Lloyd Blankfein, and is one of attorney general Eric Holder’s closest friends. Weingarten, hoarse with a cold, is just back from a failed defense of former Connecticut Governor John Rowland. After a blow-by-blow of the trial, there was a discussion of the Qatarian’s visit— Epstein served chocolate made from pistachios grown on the Sheikh’s farm—and speculation about who actually controls ISIS, with Weingarten arguing that the Turks are not getting enough scrutiny (he posits that ISIS is part of their proxy war against the Kurds). There HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_022902