The House of Representatives on Wednesday approved a motion to hold business magnate Leon Black in contempt of Congress after he declined to comply with subpoenas related to Jeffrey Epstein issued by one of the lower chamber’s most powerful committees.
As the co-founder of Apollo Global Management, Black paid Epstein to be his wealth adviser for years and has been scrutinized for his connections to the deceased New York financier in recent months after debate over Epstein’s life surged. Black was deposed by the House oversight committee to appear for testimony on Epstein and hand over several nondisclosure agreements earlier this month, but stirred a ruckus when he refused, instead filing a lawsuit challenging the panel’s subpoenas as invalid because they bear “no legitimate connection” to the committee’s purpose.
On Tuesday, the House oversight committee unanimously agreed to hold Black in contempt of Congress. The House on Wednesday then approved Chairman James Comer’s (R-KY) move to advance the measure, setting the stage for the matter to be sent to the Department of Justice to determine whether to prosecute Black criminally.
“No one is above the law. Leon Black defied two subpoenas, and the U.S. House of Representatives acted swiftly to find him in contempt of Congress. We will continue to seek transparency for the American people and justice for survivors in our investigation of the federal government’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell criminal cases,” Comer said in a statement referring to Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime confidante, who is now in prison.
Black has been accused in court of raping two women, including a minor, at Epstein’s New York home in 2002, allegations he denies. He argued in his lawsuit that turning over NDAs requested by the oversight committee would “expose women who value their privacy, who have no known or public connection to Epstein, who bargained for confidentiality and have refused to release it.”
Before defying the committee’s summons earlier this month, Black voluntarily gave an interview to the panel in June. At the time, he said a previous investigation found he paid Epstein a total of $158 million over the course of multiple years to help manage his wealth and perform “valuable and legitimate tax and estate planning services.” Black testified that Epstein saved him billions of dollars, but told lawmakers that the New York financier also manipulated him out of millions.
“Epstein also told me that the fees I was paying him were tax-deductible 60-cent dollars, which I only learned years later was not true, i.e., what I believed to be $95 million of net fees paid to him over five years was actually $158 million,” he said. “But at the time I was led to believe by Epstein that I was paying 60-cent dollars. That assurance was subsequently proved to be false. With hindsight, I now see that Epstein exaggerated, embellished, manipulated, and outright lied prolifically and without concern for me or my family, and I now see that his deceit was not limited to me but also extended to numerous highly sophisticated individuals.”
Black claimed the investigation released by the Dechert law firm in 2021 cleared him of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
“The fact of the matter is that I am the only person in Epstein’s orbit, including all seven of the individuals who have been called to appear before this committee, who has been the subject of an independent investigation made at my request wherein the results were made public,” he told lawmakers. “The Dechert law firm spent 3 months examining 60,000 documents and 22 interviewing over 20 people. … It also found, importantly, that I had no knowledge of or did not participate in 20 any way with any of his criminal behavior.”