Washington — The House has voted unanimously to hold billionaire investor Leon Black in contempt of Congress after he refused to comply with subpoenas issued during lawmakers’ investigation into the late Jeffrey Epstein.
The resolution passed by unanimous consent, one day after the House Oversight Committee voted 41-0 to recommend contempt proceedings against Black.
The case will now be referred to the Justice Department, which could pursue a criminal prosecution.
Black, a former business associate of convicted sex offender Epstein, failed to appear before the committee on Sept. 3 and did not provide requested nondisclosure agreements. In June, he also abruptly ended a voluntary, closed-door transcribed interview with lawmakers. Black has sued in federal court in Washington, D.C., challenging the subpoenas’ validity.
Black, who co-founded Apollo Global Management, hired Epstein as a wealth management adviser and paid him substantial sums for tax and estate-planning work. Emails released last year indicate that Black also discussed personal matters with Epstein, including extramarital affairs that led to nondisclosure agreements.
Black told lawmakers in June that he first met Epstein in the 1990s and began paying him for wealth management advice in 2013. He has said he regrets hiring Epstein, accusing him of repeatedly lying and “falsely claim[ing] to have been involved in decisions about investments.”
Black’s attorneys said over the summer that the private equity executive was unaware of Epstein’s criminal conduct. They also maintained that Epstein “had no involvement with any NDA’s, whether they exist or not.” In a statement Wednesday, Black’s lawyers repeated that he “never forced any woman to sign any NDA.”
“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,” Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the committee chairman, said in a statement. “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.”
Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the committee’s top Democrat, described the vote as “an important step towards justice and accountability.”
Black’s attorneys called the House action “outrageous,” arguing that lawmakers had “rushed through every stage of this inquiry.”
“The Committee has continued to insist on looking for information that does not exist. They are looking to ask questions about every NDA Mr. Black ever signed, including agreements with business partners over his 50-year career and with individuals he never met. This is absurd. They even asked him to provide the names of people in his social circle who have NDAs,” attorneys Susan Estrich and Aaron Cutler said.
