Leon Black Skipped His Own Deposition Thursday and Sued the Committee Instead. Comer Says Nobody Has Ever Done That.

Leon Black was scheduled to sit for a videotaped deposition before the House Oversight Committee on Thursday morning as part of the panel's investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. He did not show up. While the room waited, his lawyers were in federal court in Washington filing a lawsuit asking a judge to throw out the two subpoenas the committee served on him in June — one compelling the deposition, the other demanding he produce nondisclosure agreements and related documents.

Black's attorney, Susan Estrich, said in a statement that the panel had lost the plot. "The Committee is on a fishing expedition that oversteps its authority," she said, arguing the demands have no legitimate connection to any legislative purpose. She went further on her client's behalf: the inquiry, she said, is "no longer about finding the truth about Epstein. It is about trying to destroy Mr. Black." The lawsuit also argues that handing over the NDAs would force "the disclosure of the unredacted identities and private circumstances of women who bargained for confidentiality."

Committee Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, called the move unacceptable and noted that in the course of the Epstein investigation no other witness has sued rather than comply. Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the panel's ranking Democrat, called the lawsuit "laughable" and said Black is simply "trying to slow the process down." Garcia pointed out that Black is now defying two congressional subpoenas at once. Both men said they would discuss holding him in contempt of Congress — a step that requires a committee vote and then a floor vote, and that can be referred to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution.

The subpoenas grew out of a closed-door interview Black gave voluntarily in June. He answered questions for hours, lawmakers said, but refused to answer any about the nondisclosure agreements. The committee issued the two subpoenas the same day. Emails the panel has released show Epstein advising Black on at least one such agreement, involving a Russian model.

Black co-founded Apollo Global Management and stepped down as its chief executive in 2021, after a review the firm commissioned documented roughly $158 million in payments from Black to Epstein between 2012 and 2017. Black has said the money was for tax and estate planning advice. Garcia has put the total higher, saying Black gave Epstein more than $180 million over six years, and has said Black "made women sign strict non-disclosure agreements to keep them quiet." Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from a minor, four years before the bulk of those payments began.

Black has never been charged with a crime, and a separate investigation by New York prosecutors closed without action. What is in front of a judge now is narrower and older than the Epstein case itself: how far a congressional committee's subpoena power reaches, and whether a private citizen can litigate his way out of one before the House votes on contempt.