The House on Wednesday unanimously agreed to hold the billionaire investor Leon Black in criminal contempt of Congress after he refused to appear for a deposition and turn over documents to a key panel investigating the disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The citation, agreed to without a recorded vote, amounts to an official recommendation that the Justice Department bring federal charges against Mr. Black. It may serve to refocus public attention on the Trump administration’s handling of investigative material related to Mr. Epstein just as lawmakers depart Washington for a final spate of campaigning before the midterm congressional elections.
While President Trump has labored to avoid discussing the Epstein matter and excoriated those clamoring for more transparency, Republicans in Congress have tried to show they take the case, which has generated outrage among their core supporters, seriously.
The House Oversight Committee issued subpoenas to Mr. Black in June, after he refused to answer questions about nondisclosure agreements that he had signed with women, some of whom had been linked to Mr. Epstein. The panel demanded that he appear for a deposition and provide copies of any nondisclosure agreements he might have entered into. Mr. Black refused to comply and instead sued the committee, accusing it of exceeding its authority.
The committee on Tuesday unanimously recommended holding Mr. Black in contempt. Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky and the panel’s chairman, accused him of using the lawsuit as cover.
“Mr. Black is hiding behind litigation to delay having to provide answers to the American people,” he said on Tuesday. “No one is above the law. Mr. Black will be treated the same as anyone else in this investigation, and his actions have consequences.”
Representative Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the committee, said in an interview that Mr. Black had clearly violated two subpoenas.
“Subpoenas have to mean something in the Congress,” he said. “When you give $180 million to Jeffrey Epstein and are unwilling to answer questions about why and where and how you were involved? I think that’s a huge, huge issue.”
Mr. Black’s lawyers, Susan Estrich and Aaron Cutler, criticized the contempt vote in a statement, saying that Mr. Comer’s actions were “politically motivated and completely retaliatory.” They said that Mr. Black had already provided the committee with the “only confidentiality agreement” that was relevant to its investigation. They also said they had filed an ethics complaint against Mr. Comer, though they declined to specify what offenses they believed he had committed.
Mr. Black’s lawsuit said that the Oversight Committee’s subpoenas were “invalid” and that unnamed women and others “whom he has or may have agreements” with had “bargained for confidentiality.” Those people “want no association with the Epstein scandal,” the lawsuit said.
Mr. Black paid Mr. Epstein $170 million from 2013 to 2017 for what he described as traditional tax and estate planning services, according to congressional records and government documents.
Mr. Black has repeatedly said he knew nothing about Mr. Epstein’s decades-long sexual abuse of teenage girls and young women. But the release of millions of pages of emails and documents by the Justice Department put a new focus on Mr. Epstein’s relationship with Mr. Black.
Mr. Epstein advised Mr. Black on how to address issues he faced with several women with whom Mr. Black had sexual affairs. And Mr. Black paid about $20 million to a dozen women, according to the files and notes taken by congressional investigators that were previously shared with The New York Times.
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