The billionaire investor is under two subpoenas from the House Oversight Committee. But in his lawsuit, Black says the panel doesn't have the authority to compel him to share nondisclosure agreements.
Page A2From§Eachthe late evening edition — 3 September 2026
Leon Black sues to dodge Epstein subpoena, hands House panel the setback subpoena was meant to prevent
As it ran on the front
On Monday night, Thomas Massie stood on the House floor and read over a dozen names into the Congressional Record, people he identified as Epstein co-conspirators. It's the same file-release push he has kept working on for a couple of years, the low-tech version of what a subpoena is supposed to accomplish at scale: put names and documents on the public record.
Three days later, Leon Black showed a different way to handle a subpoena. Black, who co-founded Apollo Global Management and was under two subpoenas from the House Oversight Committee in its Epstein inquiry, did not appear and testify. He sued the committee instead, arguing in the filing that Oversight has no authority to compel him to hand over his nondisclosure agreements.…
…(cont) Read that sentence again, because it is the whole story. The subpoenas existed to get information the committee could not otherwise reach. The lawsuit exists to keep the committee from reaching it. Filing suit is not a step toward compliance — it is the noncompliance, wearing a suit and citing standing. Thursday's filing does not answer the subpoena; on its own, without a single ruling yet entered, it is the setback the subpoena was written to prevent, because the committee's investigation now waits on a docket instead of a witness.
That is the mechanism: you do not have to beat a subpoena, you only have to outlast it. File a challenge to the committee's authority, argue jurisdiction, let the clock that matters — the one on this Congress — run out while the case sits on a federal docket. A man who helped build one of the largest private equity firms in the country has the lawyers on retainer to turn a testimony date into years of motions practice.
Massie's names went into the record the same week Black's lawyers went into court. One method produces a transcript by Tuesday morning. The other produces a case number, a briefing schedule, and a committee sitting on its hands until a judge tells it what an oversight subpoena is worth.
Congress subpoenaed a man to find out what he knew about Epstein. What it found out instead is what his lawyers can do to a subpoena.
“They served him two subpoenas and he served them a lawsuit — that's the whole play. You don't beat a subpoena, you outlive it in court while the calendar runs out on the committee that issued it. Same week, a congressman's standing on the House floor reading names by hand, because that's the one method a fortune in retained lawyers can't get enjoined — and that tells you exactly who this system protects.”
“Look — a subpoena isn't a blank check. A man has the right to challenge an overbroad demand for private contracts in federal court, that's due process, not obstruction. It's boring civil procedure. Now if the case just happens to outlast the committee's term and the NDAs never surface — that's an unfortunate scheduling issue, not a defense. Forget I said scheduling.”
The receipts
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who has been a key figure in a push to release files linked to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in the last few years, read off over a dozen names of what he said were “Epstein coconspirators” on Monday…
Business magnate Leon Black on Thursday pressed against the House oversight committee’s attempt to investigate him as part of its Jeffrey Epstein inquiry, filing a lawsuit challenging the panel’s move to summon him for testimony and unearth his nondisclosure agreements. Black, who helped found private equity behemoth Apollo Global…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.