The Oversight Committee issued the subpoenas after Leon Black refused to answer questions about NDAs, the panel’s chairman said.
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The congressional committee investigating Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes issued two subpoenas to billionaire investor Leon Black on Friday, escalating efforts to obtain information from associates of the late financier and convicted sex offender.
The subpoenas will compel Black to appear for a deposition on July 16 before the House Oversight Committee and to turn over any nondisclosure agreements that he signed with women.
Black, a co-founder and former CEO of the private equity firm Apollo Global Management, had appeared voluntarily before the House Oversight Committee on Friday but walked out after the subpoenas were issued.
Epstein handled tax and estate planning services for Black’s family office. A 2021 review commissioned by Apollo found that Black paid Epstein $158 million between 2012 and 2017. It found no evidence of wrongdoing by Black. Black, whose friendship with Epstein began in the 1990s, subsequently resigned from his role at the private equity firm.
The committee’s chairman, Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky), told reporters that he issued the subpoenas after Black refused to answer questions about the terms of the NDAs during the voluntary interview.
“The NDAs are between him and other women,” Comer said after the interview with Black ended abruptly. “We want to know: Was Jeffrey Epstein involved in the NDAs? Was he involved in writing? Was he involved in awarding funds to the women for the NDAs? What was the reason for the NDAs?”
Nearly a year into its probe, the committee has brought in an array of high-ranking current and former government officials, business titans, and influential figures to answer questions, largely voluntarily and behind closed doors, about their connections to Epstein and law enforcement efforts to investigate his crimes.
Black told the committee Friday that he had been repeatedly “duped and deceived” by the financier during their years-long relationship, according to a prepared statement provided by his legal team.
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“I knew Jekyll. I didn’t know Hyde,” Black said.
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from a minor and served 13 months in jail. He died in a New York jail cell in August 2019, weeks after his arrest on federal sex-trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide.
Black maintained in the prepared statement that he was not aware of Epstein’s “nefarious activity” until Epstein was charged with sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors in 2019. He said that while he was aware of the 2008 conviction, he believed Epstein’s explanation that “it was an isolated incident resulting from a fake ID.” Black said he maintained a relationship with Epstein in part because of his “unrivaled network of relationships.”
Black said that he never abused women or had sexual relations with minors, and that he “was not involved with, and had no knowledge of, any of Epstein’s heinous conduct.”
Susan Estrich, an attorney for Black, told reporters after the closed-door interview that the subpoenas were “nothing more than a planned political stunt.” Comer, she said, “made a premeditated political decision to serve him with subpoenas after less than an hour of questioning, and before they even asked a single question about his legitimate payments to Epstein.”
Comer and the highest-ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Robert Garcia (California), have at times clashed over the chairman’s handling of the investigation. But Garcia said Friday that he supported Comer’s decision to issue the subpoenas to Black.
“It was clear from the moment that this interview started that Leon Black was not going to answer critical questions around our investigation,” Garcia said. “The decision to then move forward to the actual subpoenas [was] critical.”
When reached for comment regarding Garcia’s remarks, Black’s legal team referred back to Estrich’s earlier statement.
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