House Holds Billionaire Epstein Associate Leon Black in Criminal Contempt After Defying Congressional Subpoenas

Billionaire Leon Black — a longtime friend and associate of deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein — has been held in criminal contempt of Congress after he refused to comply with subpoenas from the House Oversight Committee. Mr. Black walked out of a voluntary interview with the committee earlier this year after he learned that lawmakers would seek information about non-disclosure agreements between himself and various women. Criminal contempt is a process by which Congress can refer individuals for prosecution if they refuse to comply with the chamber’s investigations. The Constitution and legal precedent grant Congress broad discretion over what kind of investigations it can conduct and to what extent lawmakers can pursue personal information. If charges are brought by the Justice Department against Mr. Black and he is convicted, he could face up to one year in federal prison. Mr. Black has been a key figure in Congress’s long-running investigation into the government’s handling of its probes into Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019. According to records reviewed by lawmakers and the New York Times, Mr. Black funneled more than $150 million to Epstein over the course of years. Some of that money was used to pay women as part of non-disclosure contracts which they had signed with Mr. Black. Mr. Black has denied past accusations of sexual assault. On Wednesday, the House passed the criminal contempt resolution unanimously after the Oversight Committee advanced the resolution on Tuesday. The vote in the Oversight Committee to hold Mr. Black in contempt was also unanimous. “Leon Black is legally required to appear for a deposition before the Oversight Committee and required to turn over all non-disclosure agreements to which he was a party. The Committee also asked for all NDAs and confidentiality agreements that Epstein and [Ghislaine] Maxwell were involved or referenced in,” the chairman of the committee, Congressman James Comer, said before the panel’s vote on Tuesday. “He defied Congress and refused to do either.“Instead, Mr. Black is hiding behind litigation to delay having to provide answers to the American people. No one is above the law,” Mr. Comer said. In another statement after the criminal contempt resolution was adopted on Wednesday, Mr. Comer insisted that his committee’s work will “continue.”Mr. Black is currently suing the Oversight Committee in federal court, arguing that the two subpoenas — one for Mr. Black’s testimony and the other for records related to his non-disclosure agreements — are an overreach. On the non-disclosure issue, Mr. Black’s attorneys argue that compelling the production of such documents “would … 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.”“Congress’s power is not unlimited,” the attorneys write.

House Holds Billionaire Epstein Associate Leon Black in Criminal Contempt After Defying Congressional Subpoenas

House Holds Billionaire Epstein Associate Leon Black in Criminal Contempt After Defying Congressional Subpoenas

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