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Deposition Transcripts · Segments · #9599
id
9599
deposition id
13
segment index
12
speaker
Page 13
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end seconds
text
I am a self-made businessman who has experienced much good fortune, and I have personally paid billions of dollars in taxes on the Federal, State, and local level. When the first news accounts called out millions I had paid to Epstein, I was the chairman and CEO of Apollo Global Management, which I had founded and built for 30 years. I am proud of the work that I did with many others at Apollo to invest and support companies in America and the world. I helped to create numerous businesses that are responsible for providing hundreds of thousands of good, well-paying jobs that American families depend on to pay their bills and realize their dreams. Apollo also invested hundreds of billions of dollars in the American economy, including billions of dollars for labor union pension funds, which return billions of dollars to fund the retirements for millions of workers. The reason I am here today is because of my unfortunate connection to Epstein, a man we all know now to be reprehensible. I severed my connection to Epstein in 2018 after more than a year of increasing turmoil in our professional arrangements. After Epstein's arrest in 2019, we all came to know more about the demonic life he was leading. It was a life I knew nothing about. In 2020, I asked for and fully cooperated with an independent investigation into my relationship with Epstein because I had nothing to hide. Well-respected former prosecutors from the Southern District of New York who were at the Dechert law firm spent 3 months examining 60,000 documents and interviewing over 20 people. They had no limitations, no restrictions, and full access to all financial records and correspondence. Their questions, on behalf of an independent committee of Apollo's board of directors, answerable to the shareholders and limited partners of Apollo, were