Congress just opened a new front in its battle with billionaire Leon Black.
The House of Representatives Wednesday voted to hold Black, the Jeffrey Epstein associate and former CEO of Apollo Global Management, in criminal contempt of Congress. Black had refused to comply with a subpoena requiring him to hand over all of his NDAs, and any in his possession that reference Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell.
The same day, the chair of the congressional committee trying to pry non-disclosure agreements from Black for its Epstein investigation proposed a bill that would allow victims of sexual abuse to break NDAs.
James Comer, the chair of the House Oversight Committee, said the proposed bill would ensure that sexual-abuse survivors and other people with information about such abuse could speak freely about it.
“During our investigation, we’ve learned how powerful men weaponized nondisclosure agreements to silence survivors of sexual abuse,” Comer, a Kentucky Republican, said in a statement Wednesday.
Business Insider reported earlier this year that some of Epstein’s accusers have signed confidential settlements with friends of Epstein whom they have also accused of misconduct, according to three people with direct knowledge of such settlements. The settlements include NDAs, the people said. One person told Business Insider they had direct knowledge of settlements with four of Epstein’s friends who were accused of sexual misconduct by more than 20 women between them.
The House Oversight Committee in June issued two subpoenas to Black when he refused to answer questions about NDAs in a closed-door interview about his interactions with Epstein. Black, who gave over $150 million to Epstein for what he said were financial services, walked out of that voluntary interview.
This month, Black sued the committee rather than comply with the subpoenas. One subpoena demanded NDAs; the other required him to testify under oath in a deposition.
Black has said he wasn’t aware of Epstein’s sexual abuse of women. His lawsuit says the committee didn’t have a “valid legislative purpose” for “such a sweeping and intrusive subpoena served upon a private citizen.”
Epstein died in 2019 while awaiting trial for federal sex-trafficking charges. Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison after a Manhattan jury found her guilty in 2021 of trafficking girls to Epstein for sex.
If passed into law, Comer’s proposed bill, called the Survivor’s Voice Protection Act, would void nondisclosure clauses if they prohibit victims of sexual abuse from speaking about those experiences, or if they bar any other person from disclosing facts related to such abuse. The law would also create a fiduciary duty to inform law enforcement about suspected sexual grooming of minors.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have not yet said whether they would support the NDA law.
Wednesday’s House vote by unanimous consent to hold Black in contempt allows House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson to send a criminal referral to the Justice Department.
Black’s lawyers criticized the vote and said the committee’s subpoenas unfairly targeted him.
“The Committee has continued to insist on looking for information that does not exist,” attorneys Susan Estrich and Aaron Cutler said in a statement Wednesday. They said the committee sought to ask questions about every NDA Black had ever signed, including with business partners and individuals whom he had never met.
People with non-disclosure agreements can be legally compelled to speak about their experiences with a subpoena, but not in a voluntary interview with Congress. Some of Epstein’s other associates, including Bill Gates, said in voluntary interviews that they didn’t sign any non-disclosure agreements with Epstein or Maxwell victims.
Many states banned NDAs related to sexual abuse during the #MeToo movement following reporting about Harvey Weinstein, but no such ban exists on a federal level.
This story has been updated.
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