The US House of Representatives has unanimously voted to hold billionaire investor Leon Black in contempt of Congress after he defied subpoenas issued as part of lawmakers’ investigation into the late Jeffrey Epstein.
The decision was taken by unanimous consent, a day after the House Oversight Committee voted 41-0 to recommend the action. The case will now be referred to the Justice Department for possible prosecution.
Mr Black, who co-founded Apollo Global Management, failed to appear before the committee on September 3 and did not provide documents relating to nondisclosure agreements. He had also left a voluntary, transcribed interview with the panel in June.
He has filed a lawsuit in a Washington DC federal court challenging the validity of the subpoenas.
Mr Black employed Epstein as a wealth management adviser and paid him substantial sums for tax and estate-planning services. Emails released last year indicated that Mr Black had also confided in Epstein about personal matters, including extramarital affairs that resulted in nondisclosure agreements.
Mr Black told lawmakers in June that he had met Epstein in the 1990s and began paying him for wealth management advice in 2013. He said he regretted employing him, accusing Epstein of repeatedly lying and “falsely claim[ing] to have been involved in decisions about investments”.
Mr Black’s lawyers have said he was unaware of Epstein’s crimes. They have also said Epstein “had no involvement with any NDA’s, whether they exist or not”, and reiterated that Mr Black “never forced any woman to sign any NDA”.
James Comer, the Republican chairman of the Oversight Committee, said: “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.”
Mr Comer said the committee would continue seeking transparency over the federal government’s handling of the criminal cases involving Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as justice for survivors.
Robert Garcia, the committee’s senior Democrat, described the vote as “an important step towards justice and accountability”.
Mr Black’s lawyers, Susan Estrich and Aaron Cutler, called the action “outrageous” and said the House had “rushed through every stage of this inquiry”.
They said the committee was seeking information that did not exist and was asking about every nondisclosure agreement Mr Black had signed during his 50-year career, including agreements involving business partners and people he had never met.
“This is absurd,” they said, adding that lawmakers had even asked Mr Black to provide the names of people in his social circle who had nondisclosure agreements.
