1. United States
2. S.C.
3. Letter

Leon Black, the billionaire who paid Jeffrey Epstein at least $158 million, walked out of a closed-door House interview on Friday rather than answer questions about the nondisclosure agreements he allegedly signed with women connected to Epstein. The committee handed him two subpoenas on his way out. Sixteen people have now sat for that committee’s Epstein investigation. Black is the first to get up and leave. The $158 million is not in dispute. Black paid it to Epstein in the years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor, when most of the world had already backed away. An outside investigation uncovered the payments, and they cost Black his job. He was forced out of Apollo Global Management, the firm he co-founded, in 2021. The Epstein scandal had already taken his company. He still would not answer the question. He came in voluntarily, he said, to set the record straight. The chairman had called it potentially the most important interview of the entire investigation. According to a congressman in the room, Black used part of his time praising how smart and how great Jeffrey Epstein was. Then the questions turned to the nondisclosure agreements, and he stopped talking and walked out. Rep. Robert Garcia said there are survivors who have accused Black of horrific things, and that the agreements are central to understanding what actually happened. Black denies all of it. “I have never been with an underage woman,” he told the panel. He will say that on the record. He will not answer questions about the documents. One subpoena orders him to produce the agreements. The other orders him back on July 16 for a videotaped deposition, under oath. You can walk out of a voluntary interview. You cannot walk out of a subpoena.