Leon Black, then-CEO of Apollo Global Management, at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, May 1, 2018.
Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Former Apollo Global Management CEO Leon Black sued the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Thursday, seeking to block subpoenas for multiple nondisclosure agreements he was a party to and for further testimony from him as part of a probe of his and others’ ties to notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Black was due to appear before the oversight committee on Thursday morning pursuant to a subpoena but refused to do so.
The committee instead held a closed-door session with an empty chair set aside for the missing billionaire.
Democrats on the panel called on it to formally hold Black in contempt “immediately.”
One of the Democrats, Rep. Robert Garcia of California, said that “Black made women sign strict nondisclosure agreements … to keep them quiet.”
Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said if it were up to him, “I would hold him in contempt right now.” But Comer added that he wanted to discuss the issue with the panel’s lawyers to avoid harming its chances of obtaining the NDAs.
“I’m very disappointed,” Comer said. “This is unacceptable.”
“We need those nondisclosure agreements.”
Black’s attorneys say the NDAs sought by the committee have nothing to do with his dealings with Epstein, and that Black had no knowledge of crimes that led to the financial advisor’s arrest on federal child sex trafficking charges in 2019.
The panel issued the subpoenas on June 26, right after Black refused to answer questions about the NDAs and walked out of an interview when he appeared for a closed-door session.
“The Committee is on a fishing expedition that oversteps its authority,” one of the lawyers, Susan Estrich, said in a statement. “This is no longer about finding the truth about Epstein. It is about trying to destroy Mr. Black.”
Estrich noted that Black had previously voluntarily appeared before the committee and said he also gave the panel “the only confidentiality agreement that Jeffrey Epstein knew about as part of Mr. Black’s cooperation with the Committee’s efforts to ferret out the truth about Epstein.”
“Mr. Black never abused a woman,” Estrich said. “He never was with an underage woman. He never engaged in sex trafficking. He never paid Epstein for access to women. He was never blackmailed by Epstein.”
Black’s lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington claims the two subpoenas issued to Black are “invalid to the extent they exceed” the committee’s “delegated authority in seeking private information that bears no legitimate connection to OGR’s legislative purpose.”
“Additionally, the subpoenas would also 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, and who have no ability to protect themselves and their privacy before the Committee,” the suit says.
Black stepped down as Apollo CEO in March 2021, months earlier than originally planned, two months after the firm revealed he had paid Epstein $158 million for tax and estate planning advice from 2012 through 2017 despite knowing that the financial advisor had pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl in Florida.
Black testified to the House committee in June that, “The tax work was responsible for billions of dollars in savings.”
Black also said then that Epstein duped him out of more than $60 million in financial advisory fees by falsely claiming that they were tax deductible.
Epstein, 66, killed himself in a federal jail in New York in August 2019, weeks after his arrest on federal charges.
Comer, in a statement Thursday, said, “It’s a shame Leon Black is hiding behind litigation rather than provide answers to the American people.”
“Our investigation is examining how the federal government for decades failed survivors of Jeffery Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes and how Mr. Epstein sought to curry favor with influential individuals to avoid scrutiny,” Comer said.
“Mr. Black’s testimony is crucial to our investigation as he was one of Mr. Epstein’s fee paying clients and has several nondisclosure agreements.”
Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the panel, said in a statement, “By refusing to testify today, Leon Black is now defying two Congressional subpoenas.”
Garcia said Black had paid millions of dollars to women he had sexual relationships with, “some of whom were also connected to Epstein.”
“He also paid $62.5 million to the U.S. Virgin Islands to avoid Epstein-related claims against him. Black’s name is mentioned hundreds of times in the Epstein files.”
“He funded Epstein’s abuse and trafficking of women. Multiple women have also accused Black of sexual assault,” Garcia said. “His connections to Epstein and his unwillingness to cooperate are unacceptable. We must hold him in contempt immediately.”