Latest / The Epstein Chronicles / Leon Black And His Epstein Related Congressional Transcript (Part 2) (7/19/26)

Transcript

Leon Black And His Epstein Related Congressional Transcript (Part 2) (7/19/26) · The Epstein Chronicles

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're going to pick up
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: where he left off with the Leon Black interview with
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Congress Miss Brygnac. Question, mister Black, let's begin by discussing
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: your background. Where were you born? Answer? New York City?
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Question what year were you born? Answer nineteen fifty one?
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Question what's your amoral status? Answer? I've been married for
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: forty five years forty four years as of last week.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Question and who is your wife? Answer? My wife is
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Deborah Black? Question and you have children? Correct answer? I
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: have four children. Question. What's your educational background? Answer? I
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: grew up in New York City, went to Fieldston High School,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: went to Dartmouth College, and I went to Harvard Business School.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Question and we'll go into more detail later, but for now,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: can you briefly describe your professional career? Answer? My professional
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: career is I spent thirteen years at the investment bank
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: known as drex Burnham Lambert. I was the head of
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Mergers and Accusitions department, and there was a corporate finance
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: department there. When Drexel collapsed in the early nineties, I
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: founded Apollo Global Management and was the chairman and CEO
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: for almost thirty one years. I left. I retired there
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: five years ago, basically, and I've been running our family
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: office called Elysium. Question when did you begin to work
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: with Elysium? Answer? Well, I started Elysium while I was
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: still at Apollo, but when I retired from Apollo, it
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: kind of amped up. Question what year did you begin
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: your work with Elysium? Answer? I don't remember the specific year,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: but that family office was in existence probably for three
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: or four years while I was still chairman of Apollo.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Question thank you tell me about the first time you
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: interacted with Jeffrey Epstein. Answer? I met Epstein in the
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: mid nineties, either ninety five or ninety six, at a
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: lunch that I was having with a mutual friend of ours,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: which he then joined. That's when I first met him,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: and that was in New York City in the mid nineties.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Question who was the mutual friend? Answer it was a
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: man named skip Stein Elliott Stein. Question how did you
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: know mister Stein? Answer? I had known mister Stein for
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: many years. He was an investor, he's a friend. Question
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: what was his relationship to mister Epstein? Answer? I think
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: there were friends also. Question How did you know that?
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Answer because he joined a lunch and said, this is
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: my friend Jeffrey Epstein that I want you to meet.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Question did you know mister Epstein would be going to
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: the lunch before? Answer? No. Question What was the reason
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: for him bringing mister Epstein to the lunch? Answer? I
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: think he thought I would find him an interesting person.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Question who else was present? Answer? No one. Question what
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  Speaker 1: was discussed at the lunch? Answer? I don't remember. This
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: was thirty years ago. It was the first meeting or
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: introduction to a person. I don't recall at all what
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: was being discussed. Question was the purpose of the lunch
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: to meet mister Ebstein? Answer not, to my knowledge, I
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: have no idea. Question do you recall if it was
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: a friendly lunch or the nature of the topics that
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: were discussed. I think it was a totally friendly lunch.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Leon Black replies, and I just don't remember what was discussed.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Question why do you say it was totally friendly? Answer
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: because it was a friend of mister Stein who said,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: I'd like you to meet a friend of mine. He
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: sat down, joined us, and I didn't really think much
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: about it, but there was nothing unfriendly about it. Question
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: I asked you about the nature of the topics, and
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: you said it was friendly. So was it personal? Answer?
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  Speaker 1: I'm telling you I don't recall what conversation was about
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: from thirty years ago. Question Okay, what did you know
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  Speaker 1: about mister Ebstein prior to this lunch? Answer zero? Question
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: did you hear any rumors about him? Answer not that
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I can recall. He was an absolutely new person that
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: a friend of mine said he was friends with and
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: was interesting period. Question did you do any background research
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: before meeting him? Answer? I didn't know I was going
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: to meet him, as I told you, so how could
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  Speaker 1: have I have done background research? Question what was your
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: impressions of him? Answer? Smart, that's all. Question what did
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  Speaker 1: you understand his job to be? Answer? I didn't understand
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: his job to be. I understood that he was somebody
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  Speaker 1: that SKIP was introducing me to. I mean, if somebody
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  Speaker 1: had joined you for dinner and they brought along a friend,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: it wasn't that I had any understanding of him at
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: the time. Question did you ever discover what his job
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: was before seeking advice from him? Answer? Well, that's a
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: different question because I asked advice years later, and during
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: that period I did learn a lot more about him.
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  Speaker 1: As I read my opening statement, I learned that he
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: was involved with a lot of prestigious institutions. As I
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: said my opening statement, I was impressed that he was
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: on the board of Rockefeller University, put on that board
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: by David Rockefeller, who was extremely esteemed and respected, and
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: the institution was extremely esteemed and respected. He was also
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: on the Council of Foreign Relations. He was also on
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: the Trilateral Commission. I learned over time that he had
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: pretty a pretty interesting network. I also learned that he
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: was very smart about tax and estate matters in terms
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: of Yeah, mister Grant questioned, and obviously you came to
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: learn this stuff about mister Epstein. So you met him
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: at his lunch in ninety five around there. So when
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: did you begin to actually learn about mister Epstein in
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  Speaker 1: his past and what he did for a living. Did
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: that take a couple of years? Did it take a
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: few months. When would you have been doing that ballpark
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: range Black, I don't remember. I learned that he had
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: been a math teacher. I learned Dalton School. I learned
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: that he was very friendly with as Greenberg and Jimmy Kaine,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: who were the chairs and president of bear Stearns, and
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: that he worked at bear Stearns and therefore had some
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: kind of financial sophistication. I learned that they were very
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: friendly with them, and that they liked them. And then
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: over time I also learned that he had relationships with
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: people in the government. He was good friends with Elwood Brock,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: who had been former Prime Minister of Israel, and actually
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: I hired Ehood Barock as consultant for Apollo for two years,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: retained them to handle global consultancy, so I would say
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: I met him really through Epstein. I learned that he
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: was a good friend with Larry Summers, who had been
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: the Treasury Secretary. He had relationships, as I mentioned in
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: the opening statement, with George Mitchell, with Bill Richardson. He
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: seemed to be very knowledgeable more and more about estate planning.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: And as I said, I never retained him until eighteen
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: years after I had met him, So there was a
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: lot of meetings that I had in the interim before
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: I did Miss Brignac. So, mister Black, it sounds like
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  Speaker 1: you understood he was well connected. Did you understand him
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  Speaker 1: to be wealthy? Answer? I understood him to be an
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: advisor to wealthy families. I knew he had worked for
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Les Waxner at the limited for many years. I knew
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  Speaker 1: later that he worked for the Rothschild family, but I
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: don't think I knew that earlier on. When you're asking
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: about he basically said he had done tax work in
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: estate planning for half a dozen or so families, but
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: was not at liberty to tell me other than Wexner. Question,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: and you listed quite a lot of information about him.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: How did you come to learn all that information after
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: meeting them at the lunch answer? I think a lot
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: of it came from him oftentimes, and when I spend
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: time with him, he also had other people coming to
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: the meetings. He actually introduced me to a lot of
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: interesting people over the years. You have to understand, and
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: this is something right now, and by the way, I
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: should say, I'm in no way defending them, But clearly,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: everything that's known about him in the last five years
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: is that this was a horrific, reprehensible criminal, pedophile. But
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: in those earlier years, before any of that was known,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: he was also a very interesting person. He had dinners,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: he'd have cocktails for three or four people. He'd call
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: me up and say, hey, I'm having this Nobel Prize
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: winner over for a drink. You want to join? You'll
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: find him interesting. Why don't you meet this fellow Larsen
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: from Norway who all put together the Oslo Accords. I
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: think you'll find him interesting. He had a dinner for
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Woody Allen and Dick Cavitt. Did I want to join?
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: He had something for magicians where he had three of
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: the world's most famous magicians there. If you're around, would
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: you like to join? That's where I met Bill Gates.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: He brought him up to my office to talk about
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: philanthropy for two hours. That's where I met Elon Musk.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: That's where I met Deepak Chopra. This was somebody who
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: had interesting rolodex in many different areas, whether it be science,
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  Speaker 1: whether it be academia, whether it be politics, government or business.
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  Speaker 1: So when you say how did I learn? I learned
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: oftentimes by being there at the meetings, whether it was
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: with Kathy Rumler, whether it was with Steve Bannon, whether
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: it was with Larry Summers. Question, it sounds like you
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: admired him, mister Black. Answer, I said, I don't want
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: to look like I was defending him. I'm not given
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: with hindsight, that's what we all knew about him. But
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: what we don't know about him is that he was
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: also an interesting person who had a lot a network
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: of interesting people. Question how did your relationship develop over
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: the years? Are there years that were closer than others? Answer?
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know how to answer that. I think it
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: was progressive. When you know somebody for twenty five years,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: you know them more than when you meet them. Question
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: how often did you communicate with them? Answer? I communicated
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: with him in the early years, not that much. When
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: I became convinced that he had done a lot for
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: the family less Wexner's family, I also asked him to
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: be involved in putting together my family foundation, so we
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: talked a little bit about that. That would have been
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: in the early two thousands. Question who told you about
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: this work with Wexner? Answer? He did? Question what did
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: he tell you? Answer that he was had been very
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: involved with him, and that he managed a lot of
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: his strategies and tax estate planning, and he was pretty
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: intimately involved with him. Question and back at the lunch
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: did you exchange contact information from there? Answer which lunch?
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Question the lunch where you met Epstein, did you exchange
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: contact information. Answer. I don't know if it was exchanged.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Cer knew that if I wanted to get in touch
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: with them, I could go through SKIP, So I had
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: no idea whether we exchange information. I just don't have
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: memory of that. Question What was the typical method of
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: your communication with them throughout the years? Was it through
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: associates of yours? Was it directly? Answer? I think there
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: was some texting. I didn't email. He was a rabbit emailer,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: as you know, with four million emails that are in
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: the Epstein files that have been downloaded. But I never emailed.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: But I did receive emails. That's why when I mentioned
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: the Decord report, They've reviewed sixty thousand emails and that
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: usually came through my assistant, who then printed out the
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: emails for me. Question which associates of yours would communicate
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: with mister Epstein? Answer? Well, I had a family office,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: as I mentioned, a nascent family office, where I had
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: a number of associates in it who were people in
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the tax department and accounting department and in legal handling trusts.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: I think they all had communications with them. Question mister Black,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: you brought up the Decord report. Can you plan what
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: the Decker report is answer. Of course, Deckert is a
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: major law firm run by Andy Lavander, whose background is
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: a prosecutor. And when The New York Times, in I
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: think the fall of twenty twenty wrote a story that
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: I had paid Epstein fifty to seventy five million dollars
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: for professional services, it became a big PR event, and
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: since Apollo dealt with many investors, including investors from public
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: pension funds, state pension funds, sovereign accounts, I felt that
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: we ought to as a firm and that me, as
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: a person the chairman and CEO of the firm, should
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: address the questions that were brought up through that story.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: So I went to the independent Committee on the board,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: the board members and requested that they go out and
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: retain an independent law firm to examine my relationship with Epstein, because,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: as I said in the opening statement, I had nothing
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: to hide. And so Deckert spent three to four months
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: reviewing sixty thousand documents. They had no restrictions on them,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: it was no holds barred. I fully cooperated with that,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: as did twenty other people that they interviewed to write
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: a report to the board. The decor report found a
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: number of things. They found that I paid them not
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: fifty to seventy million, but that I paid them one
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty eight million over a five year period
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: from twenty thirteen through twenty seventeen, and that it was
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: all for legitimate business purposes, That he had saved me
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: between one billion and two billion dollars, that it was
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: all vetted everything he did by major law and accounting firms,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: and that what I paid him on an after tax basis,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: which is what I believed it was, as I mentioned,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: was a kin to five percent commission on what he
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: had saved me. And it also found importantly that I
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: had no knowledge of, or did not participate with, any
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: of his criminal behavior. All right, folks, we're going to
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: wrap up right there, and in the next episode dealing
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: with the topic, we're going to pick up where we
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: left off. All the information that goes with this episode
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: can be found in the description box.