Billionaire Leon Black was scheduled to appear before the House Oversight Committee Thursday morning under a subpoena tied to its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. He did not show up. Instead, he filed a federal lawsuit against the committee and its Republican chairman, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky.
According to NPR, Black's civil lawsuit describes the panel's inquiry as a "public fishing expedition" and accuses committee members of trying to score political points rather than advance any legitimate legislative goal. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Comer responded sharply. "I don't think I need to tell anyone in here how important of a witness Mr. Black is to this investigation," Comer told journalists on Capitol Hill. He called Black's refusal to appear "unacceptable" and said panel members would discuss whether to hold Black in contempt.
Comer also noted that Black is the first of all the powerful people interviewed by the committee to respond to questioning by filing a lawsuit.
Black is the founder of Apollo Global Management, one of the largest private equity firms in the world. His name appears in the Justice Department's Epstein files thousands of times, though appearing in those files is not necessarily an indication of criminal wrongdoing. An independent investigation commissioned by Apollo concluded that Black paid Epstein $158 million for tax, estate-planning, and other legitimate activities.
Black previously spoke to the committee voluntarily in June, but ended that appearance after Comer raised the subject of nondisclosure agreements. The current subpoena seeks any nondisclosure agreements to which Black might be a party. Black says he has already produced the only relevant one, and argues that turning over additional documents would expose the identities of women who negotiated for confidentiality.
Black said he has insisted he did not know about Epstein's criminal actions. Epstein was arrested in July 2019 on federal sex-trafficking charges and died in prison. Authorities ruled his death a suicide.
Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the committee's ranking Democrat, called for Black to be held in contempt and cited accusations made against Black by multiple women.
No contempt vote had been scheduled as of Thursday.
