An activist investor was arrested at a shareholder meeting after slamming Bill Gates‘ ‘woke‘ philanthropy and meetings with Jeffrey Epstein.
Peter Flaherty, chairman of conservative NGO the National Legal and Policy Center, was cut off by Warren Buffet while speaking in favor of a proposal to have the business mogul removed as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway.
Flaherty condemned Buffet’s funding of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation before highlighting links between the Microsoft founder and Epstein.
The shareholder had his mic cut halfway through his allotted three-minute time slot before being arrested and dragged out of the venue.
Flaherty, who has regularly confronted bosses of America’s largest corporations, later decried 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.’
Flaherty, 66, from Arlington, Virginia, was listed as an attendee at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting on Saturday, where Buffet is chairman and CEO.
He had been speaking as the sponsor of a proposal to have a separate chair and CEO.
The investor argued that doing so would mean Berkshire ‘would be less identified with Mr Buffet’s personal political activities’.
Flaherty said 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.
‘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.’
At this point, he appeared to be interrupted by Berkshire official Cathy Woollums, but Flaherty insisted he would not be ‘censored’ and appealed to Buffet that he be allowed to continue.
Buffet agreed but reminded him of his three-minute limitation.
Flaherty replied ‘of course’, before continuing: ‘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.’
This sparked boos and whistles from the audience and seconds later Buffet cut him off, at one point telling Flaherty: ‘You crossed the boundary.’
Video footage shows the shareholder being grabbed by the arm and dragged from the venue by a police officer.
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.
‘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.’
Flaherty’s motion to remove Buffett as chair later failed by a wide margin, Bloomberg reported.
In 2008, after Epstein was accused of sexually abusing female minors in Florida, he reached a deal with federal prosecutors.
But from 2011, Gates met with Epstein on numerous occasions – including at least three times at the sex trafficker’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.
The $51billion Gates Foundation has championed the well-being of young girls.
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, whom she called ‘abhorrent,’ while telling CBS last year about the various factors that led to her divorce from Bill Gates.