Former Apollo Global Management CEO Leon Black has taken the unusual step of filing a lawsuit seeking to preclude the House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Government Reform from enforcing subpoenas the Committee issued in its investigations related to Jeffrey Epstein.  Black’s complaint, which challenges the Committee’s authority to enforce its subpoenas through civil litigation, poses a question that was left unresolved by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2021.  Though the court may ultimately decline to reach that question in the present litigation, the case presents an intriguing opportunity to clarify the ability of House committees to compel compliance with investigative demands.

The Unresolved Question of House Civil Subpoena Enforcement

Naming the Oversight Committee and its Chairman James Comer as defendants, Black seeks declaratory and injunctive relief concerning a document subpoena and a deposition subpoena issued during Black’s appearance at a voluntary interview on June 26, 2026.  According to the complaint, pre-interview discussions focused on public materials and Black’s professional relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.  Once in the interview, however, the Committee staff asked questions about non-disclosure agreements to which Black was a party and whether Epstein had been involved with the agreements.  Black refused to answer and the Committee issued the subpoenas in response.  According to the complaint, the subpoenas sought, among other things, all non-disclosure agreements to which Black is or was a party and required him to appear for a deposition with the Committee staff on September 3.  On that day, instead of appearing for the deposition, Black filed the lawsuit seeking to preempt the Committee from enforcing its subpoenas.

In counts one and two of the complaint, Black alleges that the subpoenas exceed the Committee’s authority under the House Rules and that the Committee lacks a valid legislative purpose in issuing the subpoenas.  These are common arguments made in response to a congressional subpoena, and they rarely carry the day.

Black’s final argument, in count three of the complaint, is more uncommon and potentially more interesting.  Black asks the court to declare that the Committee cannot bring a civil action in federal court to enforce its subpoenas.  Although Congress enacted a statutory mechanism under which the Senate, acting through the Senate Legal Counsel, may pursue certain civil subpoena enforcement actions, it has not enacted a comparable statutory mechanism for the House.  Black relies on Reed v. County Commissioners of Delaware County for the proposition that the power to issue compulsory process does not necessarily include the power to invoke judicial enforcement, and he argues that Congress’s constitutional authority does not supply the missing authority to bring a civil enforcement action.

There is a significant body of existing precedent bearing on the ability of House committees to enforce subpoenas through civil litigation.  For example, in Committee on the Judiciary v. Miers, a D.C. District Court allowed a lawsuit brought by the Committee on the Judiciary to enforce a subpoena to former White House Counsel Harriet Miers to proceed, on the grounds that the lawsuit had been authorized by a resolution passed by the full House.  A similar issue arose in litigation involving former Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch over the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the Department of Justice’s handling of the Fast and Furious gun trafficking operation.  In that litigation, another district court exercised jurisdiction over a subpoena enforcement action, which had also been authorized by a House resolution, and ordered production of certain documents after concluding that the executive branch could not withhold them on privilege grounds.  In neither case, however, was the court asked to consider whether either committee had a cause of action to pursue civil subpoena enforcement.  It appears that all parties simply presumed they did.

More recently, a D.C. Circuit panel in Committee on the Judiciary v. McGahn was finally presented with that question and concluded that the House Judiciary Committee lacked a cause of action to seek judicial enforcement of a subpoena issued to former White House Counsel Don McGahn.  As our previous analysis of congressional subpoena authority noted, that opinion was later vacated after the D.C. Circuit agreed to rehear the case en banc, but the parties voluntarily dismissed the case before it could be reheard by the full court, leaving the question of whether House committees may seek civil enforcement of their subpoenas largely unresolved.

Speech or Debate May Keep the Court from Reaching the Merits

Although the Black case would appear to present an ideal opportunity to revisit that important question, it is possible that the court may avoid doing so.  Before reaching the merits of Black’s complaint, the court could conclude that the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution forecloses the suit altogether.  The Committee is likely to argue that the issuance of the subpoenas and related investigative steps are legislative acts that therefore are immune from judicial challenge under the Clause, as many House Committees have done in prior litigation advanced by recipients of congressional subpoenas. 

For example, the Speech or Debate question was central to the D.C. Circuit’s recent decision in de la Torre v. Cassidy.  As our previous analysis of de la Torre explains, the court treated Speech or Debate immunity as a formidable jurisdictional bar to a recipient’s pre-enforcement challenge to congressional investigative actions that were facially within the scope of the Speech or Debate Clause.  In that case, the D.C. Circuit held that Speech or Debate immunity did not disappear simply because the plaintiff alleged that the Committee acted for improper reasons or in violation of his constitutional rights.  A threshold question in the Black litigation, therefore, is whether Black’s challenge can proceed notwithstanding that immunity.  If not, the court may never reach the question left open after McGahn.

Implications for Congressional Subpoena Recipients

If the court reaches the merits of Black’s complaint, its ruling could have significant implications for future House investigations.  A ruling recognizing a House civil enforcement route would provide additional support for committees seeking judicial enforcement of subpoenas.  A ruling rejecting that route could require House committees to rely more heavily on other enforcement mechanisms or negotiated resolutions. 

Whether the court ultimately reaches that question remains uncertain.  Even so, the case bears watching because it presents an unusual vehicle for examining both the House’s asserted civil subpoena enforcement authority and the limitations applicable to a subpoena recipient’s ability to obtain pre-enforcement judicial review.