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The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to hold billionaire investor Leon Black in contempt of Congress over his refusal to comply with subpoenas issued to him by the House oversight committee as part of its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
The action came a day after the committee voted unanimously to recommend that the House hold Black in contempt. Wednesday’s House vote passed under unanimous consent, meaning there was not a formal roll call, but no member objected to the contempt resolution.
The Department of Justice will now decide whether to take action on the resolution, though it is not required to. Congress held former attorney general Merrick Garland in contempt in 2024, but the justice department did not act on it. But it did prosecute Trump advisers Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon after congressional referrals for contempt, and both men served prison time.
In a statement on Wednesday, a justice department spokesperson said: “The Department of Justice is expecting to receive the referral from House oversight committee and takes allegations of contempt of Congress seriously.
“For the past 18 months, the department has repeatedly said it will follow additional investigative leads in all matters relating to Jeffrey Epstein,” they added. “The US attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia will review the referral of Mr Black carefully and will not hesitate to pursue additional cases where the evidence supports.”
Black, whose name came up repeatedly in the Epstein files, and who, as reported by the New York Times, paid Epstein a total of $170m for what he described as tax and estate planning services from 2013 to 2017, first voluntarily appeared before the committee for a transcribed interview as part of its investigation in June, but the session ended abruptly after lawmakers from both parties said that Black refused to answer questions about NDAs. Black has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and said he had no knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activities.
His lawyers criticized the contempt resolution shortly after it passed Wednesday. “This an outrageous action that ignores the facts and the truth about Mr Black. The House of Representatives has rushed through every stage of this inquiry,” they said.
“We intend to pursue our litigation challenging this action and will hold the committee and Chairman Comer accountable in the courts.”
The committee, chaired by Republican representative James Comer, then issued two subpoenas: one demanding that Black produce all NDAs “to which he is a party” and another requiring him to appear before the committee again for a deposition.
Black did not appear for his scheduled 3 September deposition and did not produce all of the NDAs sought by the committee.
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He instead sued Comer and the committee, arguing that the subpoenas were “invalid” and exceeded the committee’s “delegated authority in seeking private information that bears no legitimate connection” to its legislative purpose. He also argued that the subpoenas would “expose women who value their privacy, who have no known or public connection to Epstein”.
On Tuesday, Black’s attorneys said that the committee under Comer and the representative Robert Garcia, its top Democrat, had “lost sight of its legislative purpose and is abusing its power”. They described the subpoenas as “illegitimate, illegal and a textbook abuse of power designed to bully and destroy legal protections of private citizens” and reiterated that Black “never abused a woman”, “was never blackmailed by Epstein” and “had no knowledge of any of Epstein’s heinous conduct”.
On Wednesday morning, more than a dozen survivors of Epstein’s abuse praised the House oversight committee for the vote.
“Survivors have fought for years to bring the truth about Epstein’s network into the open and have helped create this moment of accountability,” they said on Wednesday morning before the House vote. “Congress now has an opportunity to build on that work by following the investigative leads contained in the Epstein files wherever they go and demanding answers from the powerful people connected to them.”
