Investor Arrested at Berkshire Hathaway Meeting After Criticizing Warren Buffett, Bill Gates’ Ties to Jeffrey Epstein
Shareholder activist Peter Flaherty criticized Buffett’s funding of Bill Gates’ critical race theory and woke gender ideology.
A Berkshire Hathaway investor was arrested after delivering a speech at Berkshire’s annual meeting criticizing CEO Warren Buffett’s ties to deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his funding of Bill Gates’ woke agenda.
Footage shows National Legal & Policy Center chairman and Berkshire Hathaway investor Peter Flaherty speaking up at the meeting held Saturday, May 6, 2023, in Omaha, Nebraska.
During the conference Flaherty was attempting to argue in favor of Proposal No. 8, which would have Berkshire Hathaway “require two separate people hold the office of chairman and office of CEO,” which NLPC said would help the company “be less identified with Mr. Buffett’s personal political activities.”
Flaherty was halfway done with his speech condemning Buffett when he mentioned fellow philanthropist Bill Gates’ close association with Epstein, at which point the audience gasped and Buffett motioned for him to be removed.
Speaking to The Daily Signal, Flaherty estimated it was his Epstein comment that really got him in trouble.
“I apparently touched the third rail of billionaire politics when I mentioned Jeffrey Epstein’s name,” Flaherty said. “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.”
“I was treated like any other criminal, fingerprinted, handcuffed,” Flaherty said of the arrest. “I’ve always been courteous with decorum at the annual shareholder meetings. I didn’t raise my voice. I was not disruptive.”
The Signal revealed details behind Flaherty’s arrest:
Two security officers then stood in front of Flaherty and told him that he would be arrested if he continued.
Flaherty recalled responding that he would leave after finishing his statement. He said he didn’t know at the time that his microphone’s audio had been cut.
Next, an Omaha police officer told Flaherty that he was under arrest and escorted him from the meeting at CHI Health Center Arena. Police transported him to the Douglas County Correctional Center in Omaha, where he was searched, handcuffed, and charged with criminal trespass.
Read a transcript of the comments Flaherty delivered below, complete with interruptions, including the full statement he intended to deliver:
I am Peter Flaherty, Chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center.
If we had an independent chair, the Company would be less identified with Mr. Buffett’s political activities.
He’s donated more than $100 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. As Bill Gates explained when the couple was still together, “although the foundation bears our names, basically half our resources have come from Warren Buffett.”
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, Flaherty tells a woman interrupting him, “You’re not gonna censor what I say ma’am. I’m very sorry. And I’ll appeal to the chair that I be allowed to continue.” Buffett allows him to continue, but tell him to keep in mind time restraints.]
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.
[Audience gasps]
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 which funds causes like defunding the police that are making American cities unlivable.
Money goes, too, to groups conducting [Flaherty is cut off from speaking] threatening and vulgar protests at their homes of Supreme Court Justices.
Mr. Buffett has quietly funneled more than $4 billion to groups supporting abortion on demand through the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation.
That’s $4 billion, with a B. Advocacy disguised as philanthropy.
Bill Gates has lamented political polarization and even worried aloud about a civil war. But it is billionaires who are funding the most shrill and extreme activists who are tearing our country apart.
Ironically, Mr. Buffett has pointed out that corporate executives can make a lot of people mad when they insert themselves into controversy.
Anheuser-Busch is finding that out. It cannot renounce its Dylan Mulvaney transgender promotion because it is handcuffed by its longtime support for activists who would turn on them in a minute.
Anheuser-Busch gets a perfect grade on the Human Rights Campaign scorecard, as do Berkshire portfolio companies like Coca-Cola, Bank of America, and Apple.
Bank of America and Apple help bankroll this group, which wants biological men to compete in women’s sports.
Worse, it is currently pressuring state legislatures to allow sex change operations on children, and to keep their parents out of the decision.
Let’s revisit Coca-Cola, which I discussed at last year’s meeting. CEO James Quincey, a British citizen, tried to kill Georgia’s voter integrity law in 2021 by making inaccurate and inflammatory statements about it.
That’s the law that President Biden called “Jim Crow 2.0,” and which prompted Major League Baseball to move the All-Star game out of Atlanta.
Mr. Buffett jumped on the bandwagon, too, by signing a statement by corporate leaders suggesting that Republicans seek to restrict ballot access based on race.
Two years later, we can now evaluate that accusation.
Last year, an election was held in Georgia. Turnout was record breaking. According to an independent poll, 99% of voters said they had “no problem” casting ballots. 92% said the new law either had no impact on their ability to vote or made it easier.
James Quincey was wrong, and Mr. Buffett, so were you.
