Congress
Leon Black tells House Oversight he had no knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes
Leon Black told the House Oversight Committee on Friday that he had no knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes during the years he paid the convicted sex offender tens of millions of dollars, according to a copy of the billionaire investor’s prepared remarks.
“I don’t understand why people — including members of this committee — would accept baseless speculation about me without regard to the facts and spin such ugly and vicious narratives that are demonstrably false,” Black said in his opening statement, obtained by Blue Light News.
Lawmakers, however, filed into Black’s scheduled transcribed interview Friday morning already suspicious of their witness. House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) told reporters he believed Black’s testimony had “the potential to be the most groundbreaking” of anything the panel has heard so far in its long-running Epstein investigation.
Comer also said the committee had reason to believe that Black had signed nondisclosure agreements with some of Epstein’s victims.
Black, a co-founder of Apollo Global Management, did acknowledge in his prepared remarks that he was aware of Epstein’s 2008 sex crime conviction at the time of their association but that “Epstein told me that it was an isolated incident resulting from a fake ID.”
“Five years after his conviction, I gave Epstein a second chance, as did many others,” he continued. “I wish I had not.”
Black also told lawmakers that he knew Epstein for 18 years before he began paying him in 2013 for tax and estate planning. At that time, Black said, he saw Epstein surrounded by some of the world’s most powerful people — among them former President Bill Clinton, tech mogul and philanthropist Bill Gates and then-White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler.
And he appeared to suggest that he saw Epstein as legitimate, in part, because of those who chose to associate with him: “Epstein appeared to me and to many others to have redeemed himself: [H]e served on several prestigious boards, hobnobbed with leading people in academia, the arts, business executives, and numerous world leaders.”
Clinton and Gates have already spoken with Oversight investors about their ties to Epstein; Ruemmler has agreed to sit for an interview with the panel in July.
Black said he ultimately fired Epstein in 2018 “after growing tired of his relentless pursuit of more and more money from me for professional services, his mistruths and misrepresentations … and his failure to repay most of a $30 million demand loan that I had made to him.”
He also acknowledged the allegations of sexual misconduct that have been levied against him in litigation, which he called “demonstrably baseless” and “entirely fabricated.”
In one recent case, the judge found that the law firm that had been representing Black’s accusers and the plaintiff in the case were “engaged in serious, sanctionable misconduct in this case.” However, the lawsuit — brought by a woman who claimed to have been raped by Black when she was 16 — was allowed to proceed.
“There are numerous allegations of real abuse by women — by survivors — against Mr. Black,” Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the Oversight panel, told reporters Friday morning.
A group of 10 Democrats has signed on to Rep. Greg Casar’s (D-Texas) bill that would ban superintelligence and pause advanced AI development until a vetting regime could be stood up.
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), both of whom are mulling a 2028 presidential run, are cosponsoring the bill, named the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act.
Khanna, in a statement, noted that he convened a hearing this week on AI safety cooperation between the U.S. and China as ranking member of the House China Select Committee with AI experts who underscored the need for a verifiable pause on superintelligence.
AI superintelligence is an as-yet hypothetical form of the advanced technology that surpasses humans’ cognitive capabilities, but exactly when AI crosses the threshold into superintelligence remains contested. The bill would subject violators to a 20-year prison sentence.
The support from prominent progressives in the Democratic caucus comes as the party is navigating how they would approach AI regulation should they retake control of one or both chambers in November.
Other cosponsors include Reps. Analilia Mejia of New Jersey, Yassamin Ansari and Adelita Grijalva of Arizona, Val Hoyle of Oregon, Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, Chuy García of Illinois, Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania and Nydia Velázquez of New York.
“We absolutely have to slow down and regulate the advancement of dangerous AI technologies that have the potential to spiral out-of-control and threaten humanity,” Ansari said.
To Lynch, a string of recent AI-led cyberbreaches has “shown us that the advanced forms of this are out of control,” he said in an interview. “We haven’t really solved that control problem yet, nor have we got the alignment problem right yet.”
Casar’s bill, introduced this week with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), is among the most stringent AI regulations proposed by either party.
Rather than focusing on bans as Casar and his progressive allies have done, centrist Democrats are looking to legislative proposals they say can address the technology’s risks without stifling innovation.
Senate Republicans are discussing whether to call up a data center utility costs bill as they make plans to stay in Washington next week rather than beat an early exit before the midterms.
Two GOP aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the Senate will remain in town amid pressure from some corners of the party to send members home early to campaign.
Asked if the Senate will stay next week, Majority Leader John Thune said Thursday it’s “looking that way.”
While some lawmakers had hoped to move a long-brewing bipartisan energy permitting deal, those hopes have evaporated, and GOP leaders are instead eyeing votes on the Ratepayer Protection Act — a top priority of endangered Ohio Sen. Jon Husted.
Thune said Thursday moving to the data-center-focused bill next week “is an option.” The Senate is also expected to take up a Democratic resolution condemning the Iran war and several presidential nominations.
The Ratepayer Protection Act easily passed the House earlier this month, but some Senate Democrats are arguing it does not go far enough and party leaders could be motivated to deny Husted a pre-election win.
Josh Siegel contributed to this report.
A bipartisan group of senators failed to close a long-sought deal on legislation to ease permitting approvals for energy projects, kicking consideration of the issue until after the midterm elections.
A senior Democrat aide familiar with the negotiations and granted anonymity to discuss the matter told Blue Light News on Thursday that Senate Democrats don’t think there’s enough time to get it done.
“The goal here has always been to pass permitting reform, not just to introduce it,” the aide said.
Top negotiators — Environment and Public Works Chair Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and ranking member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), along with Energy and Natural Resources Chair Mike Lee and ranking member Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) — were unable to reach agreement on a package this week, despite recent overtures made by both sides.
The lack of a deal now means a permitting bill likely won’t get a vote until after the elections, when lawmakers are expected to face a packed legislative agenda and the power dynamics in Congress will begin to shift.
Republicans and the Trump administration were eager to lock in a vote soon, arguing legislation to ease permitting approvals for energy projects would represent a major bipartisan breakthrough to address voters’ affordability concerns.
President Donald Trump even signaled he would ease his administration’s blockade on wind projects to entice Democrats to agree on a permitting deal.
But Democrats wanted more time for their members to review any bill and are seeking stronger assurances that the Trump administration would lay off its attacks on clean energy projects. They also did not face the same political incentives to act now, with Trump and Republicans struggling in the polls.
“I appreciate very much what the Trump administration has done to move in this direction, but in order to brief colleagues on what this really means, we need just a bit more clarity on exactly what return to regular order for wind and solar projects looks like. So that’s still to be done, but that I think can happen in fairly short order,” Whitehouse told reporters Thursday.
For all the common ground in both parties around encouraging more energy production and accelerating projects to help address affordability concerns and meet rising power demand, permitting also touches on thorny issues for congressional Republicans, Democrats and this White House.
Democrats are pressing for significant measures to boost interstate transmission lines to deliver clean power to major demand centers and restrain the administration’s power to cancel projects or stall on approvals.
Republicans, for their part, want to limit states’ authority to reject projects under a provision of the Clean Water Act that Democratic governors have used to block interstate pipelines.
Other elements of a deal would likely include easing approvals and limiting legal challenges against projects under the National Environmental Policy Act, a bedrock procedural environmental law that is increasingly blamed for stalling projects of all types, as well as under the National Historic Preservation Act, a landmark law designed to protect Native American cultural treasures.
Amelia Davidson contributed to this report.
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