Lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee accused Leon Black, the former CEO of Apollo Global Management, of not answering their questions during testimony about his ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Friday.

Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., told reporters after the interview ended abruptly that he issued two subpoenas: for Black to provide for all nondisclosure agreements, or NDAs, that the billionaire is party to and to compel Black to appear for a deposition next month.

“We want to know everything about the NDAs,” Comer said. 

In a statement Friday afternoon, Susan Estrich, Black’s attorney, criticized the committee’s interview with her client, which he voluntary agreed to, as a “planned political stunt.” Estrich said Epstein “had no involvement with any NDA’s, whether they exist or not.”

Meanwhile, the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif, said the subpoenas were “absolutely the right moves.”

“There’s no question that as soon as this interview started that the witness was not going to answer critical questions,” Garcia said. “When you ask questions about NDAs that relate directly to women and possible abuse and you’re unwilling to answer questions, I think we’ve got to elevate this.”

In his opening remarks to the panel, which were shared with Spectrum News, Black denied having any knowledge about or being involved in Epstein’s “heinous conduct.” 

“I have never abused a woman,” Black told the committee. “I have never been with an underage woman. I have never engaged in sex trafficking. I have never paid Epstein for access to women.”

Black called the three lawsuits by women who have accused him of past sexual assault “demonstrably baseless” and the allegations “entirely fabricated.”

Black also said Epstein had falsely told him that a percentage of the fees Black paid to Epstein were tax deductible, essentially duping Black out of roughly $60 million of an estimated $150 million he paid Epstein for tax and estate planning services for his family office. He added that the release of a massive trove of records related to the disgraced financier led Black to appreciate “the full extent to which Epstein was a despicable individual and an inveterate liar.”

“I knew Jekyll. I didn’t know Hyde,” Black said, according to the copy of his statement.

A document that was included in the U.S. Department of Justice release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, photographed Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, shows a Metropolitan Correctional Center report with photos of Epstein after a suicide attempt on July 23, 2019. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)

Judge orders prosecutors to release, unredact more Epstein files

Black’s appearance came a day after federal judge ordered the Justice Department to remove redactions from several records released as part of its trove of Jeffrey Epstein documents or explain all of the blacked-out information by July 2.

The decision came Thursday in a lawsuit filed by independent journalist and commentator Katie Phang, who brought a legal challenge against acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and alleged that the country’s top prosecutor was not abiding by the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

The measure was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump last year after a handful of lawmakers — including Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif. — forced the House to consider their motion to release the records

The Justice Department was given a Dec. 19, 2025, deadline to make the files available in a “searchable and downloadable format” and an additional 15 days to submit a summary of all the redactions made and their legal bases to the House and Senate Judiciary committees. 

The law set out parameters for which files would need to be released, including “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” related to Epstein and his convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, flight logs or travel records, any agreements involving Epstein or his associates and internal DOJ communications.

In his decision Thursday, Judge Emmet Sullivan noted the disclosure deadline and wrote that by not producing the “covered documents” and the redaction log, “The Attorney General conceded that he is in violation of the Act.”

When asked for response, a DOJ spokesperson said in a statement that Blanche “has not conceded anything” and that the department had produced “all responsive documents and will appeal this decision with confidence.”

“This judge is suggesting DOJ violate the law by un-redacting victim names, who as the Department has always explained, sadly became co-conspirators,” the spokesperson said.

The Justice Department had argued Phang could seek information through the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, but the judge said that the department’s responses to other FIOIA requests have shown that the statute was not “an adequate remedy.”

In a social media post, Khanna praised the decision as bringing advocates “one step closer to the full release of the Epstein files and getting survivors the justice they’ve long deserved.”

In addition to specific messages, Emmett told the Justice Department to unredact information about co-defendants in a draft indictment, the names of individuals identified as Epstein’s potential “co-conspirators” and FBI notes about an interviewee who made an unverified claim of assault by Trump.

Trump has denied wrongdoing, and a DOJ spokesperson said earlier this year that the disclosures included claims that “are unfounded and false, and if they have a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.”

Phang had argued in her filing that the Justice Department violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act by “redacting the names of senders and recipients in at least eight email exchanges with Mr. Epstein regarding a ‘torture video’ and sexual activity with young women, including minors.”

In April 2009, Epstein wrote to a redacted recipient: “where are you? are you ok , I loved the torture video.”

Massie said on social media that he was told that the sender was Emirati businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, who was later removed from his roles as chairman and CEO of DP World, one of the world’s largest logistics companies, after the disclosures. 

Epstein’s alleged exchange with bin Sulayem was one of several specific documents that Emmett ordered the Justice Department to unredact.  

Another one included the message, “New Brazilian just arrived, sexy and tute, 19yo.”

In a March 2014 email, a redacted sender wrote to Epstein: “Thank you for a fun night… Your littlest girl was a little naughty.” 

In another message to Epstein a year later, an unidentified sender raised a potential news story set to be published in The Guardian and wrote, “the key are the 14 to 15 year old girls—i am a sexual pervert because i say they are now of a reproductive age?”

The email’s author later added, “i do hope there is no legal jeopardy for you in this new flurry of activity. and my heart goes out to you brother being called a sexual pervert is no fun less so if you have served time for the crime.”

Epstein agreed to a deal in 2007 in which he pleaded guilty to state charges in Florida of soliciting a minor for prostitution that allowed him to avoid federal charges. He died more than a decade later in a New York City jail cell by suicide while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.