Leon Black
Role at the time: Plaintiff in Black v. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (D.D.C. No. 1:26-cv-03084), in a complaint signed by his attorneys at Hogan Lovells Cadwalader
Response to this claim
In a federal complaint, Leon Black alleged that the House Oversight Committee's two subpoenas are invalid to the extent they exceed its delegated authority by seeking private information that has no legitimate connection to its legislative purpose.
“The subpoenas are invalid to the extent they exceed OGR’s delegated authority in seeking private information that bears no legitimate connection to OGR’s legislative purpose. ... And they have left Mr. Black with a Hobson’s choice: to surrender private and confidential information that OGR has no lawful authority to demand or to maintain his well-founded objections and face actual or threatened contempt proceedings and federal court enforcement of an overbroad subpoena. ... OGR has used the threat of contempt and enforcement not to obtain information tied to a valid legislative purpose, but to pressure Mr. Black to abandon lawful objections in pursuit of news headlines. That use of process is coercive.”
Why we used this label
Relative to the decision to hold Black in contempt, which the committee first threatened on August 18 and the House approved on September 16, the complaint calls the threat of contempt coercive and the subpoenas invalid. It was filed twelve days before the committee's vote and predates the resolution, so it addresses the threat rather than the later decision. It rejects the basis for that threat, which is stronger than disputing a description, so condemns fits better than “Challenged the characterization”.