‘Leon Black is hiding behind litigation’: outrage after billionaire sues Congress over subpoenas
Republican oversight chair James Comer has also weighed in on Leon Black not sitting for a deposition about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. The billionaire financier, who has denied wrongdoing, filed suit against the oversight committee Thursday alleging the subpoenas were improper.
“It’s a shame Leon Black is hiding behind litigation rather than provide answers to the American people. Our investigation is examining how the federal government for decades failed survivors of Jeffery Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes and how Mr. Epstein sought to curry favor with influential individuals to avoid scrutiny,” Comer said in a statement. “Mr. Black’s testimony is crucial to our investigation as he was one of Mr. Epstein’s fee paying clients and has several nondisclosure agreements.”
“Our deposition is moving forward this morning for the record and there will be an empty chair for Mr. Black. I will speak with our members about next steps.”
In a statement about the lawsuit, Black’s lawyers said: “The Committee is on a fishing expedition that oversteps its authority and completely ignores its responsibility.”
“This is no longer about finding the truth about Epstein. It is about trying to destroy Mr. Black. We were left with no choice but to file this lawsuit in response to an abuse of Congressional power.”
More soon…
Key events
Donald Trump is once again attacking news outlets reporting on the US war with Iran, this time targeting journalists who are reporting on the strains to US ammunition stockpiles.
He referred to these media outlets as “treasonous SCUM” in a Truth Social post, and accused the media of prefering to see Washington lose its war with Iran rather than “see me WIN!”
“The people and Media Outlets that keep harping on the fact that we have no ammunition (And they are 100% wrong!), are actually treasonous. They do it because they would rather see the United States LOSE a War that we’re easily WINNING, than see me WIN! President DONALD J. TRUMP,” the president wrote.
Trump wrote in another post minutes later: “For the treasonous SCUM that refuses to accurately report on our Military Operation in Iran, we have virtually unlimited amounts of Mid to High Grade Ammunition, far more than we could ever use for this, or for any other War (which is highly unlikely!), that could improbably take place.”
Several news outlets have reported on the US-Israeli operation depleting US munitions stockpiles, prompting retaliatory Iranian strikes that have wrecked strategic bases across the Middle East. The war has also severely strained budgets across the military.
Chris Stein
The US House of Representatives passed a Republican-backed bill that would penalize universities that participate in boycotts of Israel, or attempt to prevent students from taking part in exchange programs with the country.
The Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act passed by a 237-169 vote, with 33 Democrats breaking with the rest of their party to vote in favor, and only two Republicans opposed. It now goes to the Senate for consideration.
The measure would require that colleges and universities who participate in federal student aid programs not participate in boycotts of Israel and also mandates that institutions receiving federal funding for international study and foreign language programs certify annually that they do not impose restrictions on their students participating in programs in Israel, or on students from Israel participating in programs on their campuses.
Read more:
Summary of the day so far
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Democrat representative Robert Garcia called for Leon Black to be held in contempt after the billionaire investor did not show up for a scheduled deposition about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
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Republican oversight chair James Comer has also weighed in on Black not sitting for a deposition about his ties to Epstein, saying “It’s a shame Leon Black is hiding behind litigation rather than provide answers to the American people.”
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Black, who has denied wrongdoing, filed suit against the oversight committee Thursday alleging the subpoenas were improper. “This is no longer about finding the truth about Epstein. It is about trying to destroy Mr. Black,” his lawyers said in a statement about the lawsuit.
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Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick erroneously claimed no Americans have died during the US war on Iran during a CNBC interview, leaving Donald Trump to do his version of damage control. Trump said on Truth Social this morning that 18 people were killed in Iran.
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A US federal judge blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a new executive order limiting who qualifies for birthright citizenship. The move thwarts Trump’s latest attempt to restrict the constitutional right.
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An army of attorneys is rallying to free hundreds of children from immigration custody, where they have been stranded indefinitely by the Trump administration without their parents or loved ones, the Guardian reported earlier.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is continuing to fight the US trade war with Canada on Truth Social.
“It is very good for Canadian Politicians like Prime Minister Carney to make President Donald J. Trump ‘the enemy,’ until their Economy collapses, then it will prove to be very bad for Politics — Worse than anything that has ever happened to a Canadian Politician,” he said in a post Thursday morning. “Just watch! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
Trump’s latest statement comes as the trade dispute is poised to worsen with Canada vowing retaliatory tariffs starting 8 September after the US president imposed 50% tariffs on some $20bn of Canadian goods.
Carney has rebuffed Trump’s complaints and said earlier this week that his administration needed to “start being serious.”
“When the Americans stop doing memes, stop throwing shade, stop trying to be tough and start being serious about having those discussions, we can have those discussions” about trade, Carney had said.
‘Data centers don’t use water,’ says commerce secretary Howard Lutnick
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s apparent misstatements during a CNBC interview on Wednesday didn’t just involve Iran war-related deaths – he also claimed data centers don’t use water.
“One of my favorite things is when people talk about data centers using water. The No 1 product in America that uses water is cattle,” he said, according to a writeup of his interview on The Hill.
“I mean, data centers don’t use water,” Lutnick also said. “This is propaganda by our adversaries to try to slow us down.”
Citing a 2024 report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, The Hill said that data centers used 66bn liters of water in 2023. This report predicts that hyperscalers themselves could use 60bn and 124bn liters come 2028.
Lutnick’s statement is amid growing backlash against datacenters that has brought together people from across the political spectrum. Donald Trump has criticized data center opposition, saying “The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor.”
“If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign.”
A federal judge in Boston is considering whether to continue her ban on Donald Trump’s proposed federal oversight of mail-in ballots.
Boston federal court Judge Indira Talwani said Thursday that the US Postal Service had not provided her information about how it would carry out a plan to regulate mail-in ballots for midterms, per the Associated Press.
“We are 70 days from the election and I have nothing from the USPS about how this will happen,” Talwani reportedly told Justice Department lawyer Michael Velchik.
Talwani’s comment comes several days after a whistleblower alleged that the US Postal System’s mail-in ballot screening was tossed together so quickly that just one scanning glitch could disqualify batches of ballots.
Trump signed an executive order in March tightening federal control over mail-in voting, ordering the postal service to ballots against a federally approved voter roll before sending them. This order marks a shift from the postal service’s traditional role of delivering ballots provided by the state.
Talwani last week set a 14-day temporary restraining order to prevent this system from being implemented. In June, Talwani barred the Trump administration from using the system before the midterm election.
The US Supreme Court in late August rejected Talwani’s June order, saying it was premature, AP explained.
Hillary Clinton said that she’s “heartsick” over the death of women’s rights activist Gloria Steinem.
“I’m hoping that young women realize that the fight is worth it. It is exhilarating,” the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate said Thursday on CBS Mornings.
Describing Steinem, 92, as “one of the architects of the entire structure of women’s equality,” Clinton recalled that “I think back to my first awareness of Gloria way back in the 1960s into the ‘70s, when all of a sudden this incredibly smart, beautiful, talented woman began talking about how women should have equal opportunity, how we should aim for the stars, be able to pursue our own dreams.”
The former US Secretary of State also described how Steinem’s Ms Magazine provided many women their first chance to “read articles about the status of women, to understand what the restrictions were.”
Jill Biden also weighed in on Steinem’s passing. “Gloria Steinem understood that women’s equality begins with the freedom to make decisions about our own bodies, health, and futures,” Jill Biden said, according to the Associated Press. “For decades, she fought to make that freedom real for generations of women and girls. She spoke up when it was difficult, listened to those whose voices too often went unheard, and never stopped pushing our country forward.”
“Joe and I are holding Gloria’s loved ones in our hearts today. Her voice changed our country, and her courage will continue to inspire us to keep fighting for the freedoms she spent her life defending.”
This is just in from Politico: GOP leaders are poised to announce that the last two weeks of this House session are canceled.
House members are expected to leave Washington by 17 September and “not return until mid-November”, per Politico. This means they would come back after midterm elections.
The House will work for one more week following this coming week’s Labor Day holiday, Politico said.
They are expected to announce this cancelation on Thursday.
As Republicans hold out hope that Donald Trump will distribute some of his $400m political war chest for the midterm elections, the President announced that he would campaign for GOP candidates in dozens of contests, NBC News reported
“I’m going to take the final 30 days, and maybe a little bit more than that, because it’s all about 35 races,” Trump said during a White House dinner with GOP legislators. “I’m going to go to every one of those 35 places, and we’re going to see if we can get everyone elected.”
Trump said that he would travel support Sen Dan Sullivan’s re-election campaign in Alaska as well as Texas attorney general Ken Paxton’s Senate bid, per NBC News.
The president said he would not travel for races that seem like slam-dunks for the GOP.
“If you’re leading by 40 points and you’ve been there for 25 years,” Trump reportedly said, “please don’t ask me to come to your area and make a speech, right?”
‘Leon Black is hiding behind litigation’: outrage after billionaire sues Congress over subpoenas
Republican oversight chair James Comer has also weighed in on Leon Black not sitting for a deposition about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. The billionaire financier, who has denied wrongdoing, filed suit against the oversight committee Thursday alleging the subpoenas were improper.
“It’s a shame Leon Black is hiding behind litigation rather than provide answers to the American people. Our investigation is examining how the federal government for decades failed survivors of Jeffery Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes and how Mr. Epstein sought to curry favor with influential individuals to avoid scrutiny,” Comer said in a statement. “Mr. Black’s testimony is crucial to our investigation as he was one of Mr. Epstein’s fee paying clients and has several nondisclosure agreements.”
“Our deposition is moving forward this morning for the record and there will be an empty chair for Mr. Black. I will speak with our members about next steps.”
In a statement about the lawsuit, Black’s lawyers said: “The Committee is on a fishing expedition that oversteps its authority and completely ignores its responsibility.”
“This is no longer about finding the truth about Epstein. It is about trying to destroy Mr. Black. We were left with no choice but to file this lawsuit in response to an abuse of Congressional power.”
More soon…
Democrat calls for billionaire Leon Black to be held in contempt for defying subpoenas in Epstein case
Democrat representative Robert Garcia called for Leon Black to be held in contempt after the billionaire investor did not show up for a scheduled deposition about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
“By refusing to testify today, Leon Black is now defying two Congressional subpoenas,” said Garcia, the ranking member of the oversight committee.
“His connections to Epstein and his unwillingness to cooperate are unacceptable,” Garcia also said. “We must hold him in contempt immediately.”
Black, whose name has come up repeatedly in the Epstein files, has denied wrongdoing. Black also said that he regrets dealing with Epstein.
Black left his transcribed interview with the oversight committee in June after refusing to respond to questions about non-disclosure agreements purportedly related to Epstein, according to reports.
Black’s attorneys on Thursday sued the oversight committee, alleging that two congressional subpoenas were “invalid.”
“The Committee is on a fishing expedition that oversteps its authority and completely ignores its responsibility,” his lawyers said in a statement about the lawsuit. “This is no longer about finding the truth about Epstein. It is about trying to destroy Mr. Black. We were left with no choice but to file this lawsuit in response to an abuse of Congressional power.”
Defending his commerce secretary, Trump says 18 Americans have died in Iran
Donald Trump is doing his version of damage control after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick erroneously claimed no Americans have died during the US war on Iran.
“The way the president is playing Iran…there haven’t been American deaths, it’s really just an economic choke-out,” Lutnick said Wednesday on CNBC while explaining his view that the US bond market would stabilize.
Just after 7 am this morning, Trump said on Truth social that “Sec. Lutnick had Venezuela on his mind when he said nobody was killed. 18 people were killed in Iran!”
Seven American soldiers were injured during the US attack on Venezuela, according to CNBC.
The White House has rejected New York governor Kathy Hochul’s claim that federal emergency authorities denied assistance due to “political games.”
“There is no politicization to the President’s decisions on disaster relief, unlike under the Biden Administration where [Federal Emergency Management Agency] officials refused aid to disaster survivors who displayed political signs and flags they disagreed with,” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said in a statement to The Guardian.
“New York has the fiscal and operational means to respond to this snowstorm, yet Governor Hochul wants taxpayers across America to pick up the bill,” the statement also said. “President Trump responds to each request for Federal assistance under the Stafford Act with great care and consideration, ensuring American tax dollars are used appropriately and efficiently by the states to supplement—not substitute, their obligation to respond to and recover from disasters.”
The Democrat governor had requested aid following a February snowstorm that caused $168 million in damages across New York City and Long Island, as well as the Mid-Hudson region. Hochul said Wednesday she learned about this assistance denial one day after criticizing Trump withholding $87m in counterterrorism funds from New York.
As for the White House’ mentions of using American tax dollars appropriately, New York has long been what’s considered a “donor state” –- meaning it contributes more to federal taxes than it gets from the US government, Spectrum News explained.
For the past several years, New York has had a “positive balance of payments,” receiving more in federal funds than it contributed, attributed to pandemic assistance, state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in 2025. DiNapoli warned that 2025 might be “the last” such year due to Trump administration cuts to federal healthcare, food assistance, and infrastructure funds.
Kamala Harris doesn’t much care that some Red state Democrats want the former Democratic presidential candidate to keep away from their campaigns.
“It’s all good,” Eduardo Negrón, Harris’ spokesperson, told Politico, in response to this apparent disinterest.
“Vice President Harris will continue to raise money and travel on behalf of candidates in races where she can help make a difference. With Trump so unpopular and our deep bench of strong candidates, we are now seeing deeply red states in play this cycle,” Negrón also reportedly said. “The Vice President believes we should be ruthless about competing everywhere and that means giving candidates in tough races the space to do whatever it takes to win.”
Negrón’s statements are in response to several of Harris’ colleagues saying they didn’t want her stumping for them.
Adam Hamilton, running for Senate candidate in Kansas, said Harris campaigning for him “would not be helpful to my efforts” in courting independent voters.
“In Kansas, you’re trying to reach 45 percent of the state who are Republicans and a lot of really good people who are Republicans, but their vantage point or their worldview may be a bit different than Kamala Harris,” he reportedly said.
Per Politico, he also said: “Having somebody from California come in and try to tell Kansans who they should vote for is a pretty bad idea.”
The website notes that Democrat senate candidates Mary Peltola, of Alaska, and Josh Turek, of Iowa said no to her help with their contests. Rob Sand, a Democratic candidate for Iowa governor, also said no, Politico reported.
Harris, Politico noted, “does enjoy a wellspring of support” throughout the US South and is expected to spend time there. She is also trying to show her value in potential toss-up contests, the website said.
Attorneys rally to free children held in immigration custody
Alexandra Villarreal
An army of attorneys is rallying to free hundreds of children from immigration custody, where they have been stranded indefinitely by the Trump administration without their parents or loved ones, the Guardian can reveal.
The effort is a counter strike to what critics see as unprecedented moves by federal officials to ride roughshod over children’s rights and increase deportations – while in the meantime corralling them in conditions that can allegedly lead to psychological harm.
Around 1,900 kids who arrived in the US unaccompanied by a parent or guardian were under the federal government’s control across the country as of the end of August. From babies to teenagers, children have spent an average of 183 days – roughly six months – in shelters or long-term foster care, according to the government’s own data, despite many of them having family members in the United States anxiously awaiting their release as their legal cases proceed through the immigration system.
Now, more than 50 legal organizations, firms and law offices have mobilized to join a mission they are calling the Children’s Due Process Project, where lawyers working pro bono head to federal courts to argue case-by-case that these kids are being detained unlawfully.
The immediate goal is to use highly effective habeas corpus petitions to force federal officials to justify their actions in keeping the children in their custody or let them go, the Guardian has exclusively learned.
Michael Sainato
Democrats are targeting vulnerable seats this midterm election with working-class candidates they hope will resonate with voters exhausted by the economy.
Some candidates are new to politics, and many have backgrounds as union members and leaders, which the party hopes will give them an edge over Republican incumbents as people have grown weary of Washington and the higher cost of living.
One of these new candidates is Mitchell Berman, an emergency room nurse who Democrats hope will flip a Wisconsin House seat by emphasizing his experience as a worker.
“Being a nurse working in the emergency room, we don’t have the luxury of standing around and not delivering for our patients. We have to make sure that we are addressing concerns in the immediate, making sure that when our patients come in, they leave the emergency department in better condition than they arrive,” Berman said. “That is not happening for folks here in our district.”
Berman is running in a swing district that polling shows is leaning Republican for the House race. It’s the same district that former House speaker Paul Ryan represented from 2015 until he left office in 2019, when he was replaced by Bryan Steil, a corporate attorney and former Ryan aide.
Berman is trying to convince voters that Steil has been out of touch with voters who are seeing costs rise because of White House policies. The campaign is paralleling Steil with Berman, who has worked in healthcare for more than 20 years.
The White House is pressuring American space companies, including billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX, to decline French president Emmanuel Macron’s invitation to a space summit in Paris next week, according to a Politico report.
In a private call, a White House official told companies – including SpaceX, Stoke Space, K2 Space and Astra, that attending the two-day event “could look like tacit support for EU policy positions,” three anonymous sources familiar with the call told Politico.
The sources also said the White House official, who works in the science and technology policy office, emphasized that the decision to attend is up to the companies, but the discouragement was noted.
The White House official also told industry representatives that “France did not coordinate with the US on the summit, accused the country of ‘anti-competitive practices,’ and suggested the event’s panels were not designed to include the American perspective and may diminish US industry efforts,” according to Politico’s sources.
Politico said two of the sources were connected to space companies and the third was in politics.
Apple Maps renames Lake Ontario as ‘Lake America’ for US users after Trump order
Apple has renamed Lake Ontario as “Lake America” for US users of its Maps app, after an executive order from Donald Trump to change the name of the Great Lake amid his trade spat with Canada.
The Apple Maps app now displays the controversial new name for the lake, which sits between New York state and the Canadian province of Ontario, for users in the US. Apple users outside the country will still see the Lake Ontario name.
Apple had been reportedly mulling whether to submit to Trump’s new order after receiving a personal request from the president for the tech company to change the lake’s name.
Trump welcomed the news, declaring in a Truth Social post that the adoption of “Lake America” by Google Maps and Apple Maps meant the name change was “complete, ratified, and binding”. However, the US cannot compel Canada – or any other country – to also change the name.
The US president officially unveiled the name swap last week. He did not mention his escalating trade feud with the US’s northern neighbors in the order, but the timing suggested a retaliatory move after Canadian officials denounced Trump’s new sweeping tariffs and promised to instate tariffs of their own.
Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, rejected the attempt to rename the body of water, saying in a post on social media that the lake’s name comes from the language of the Indigenous Wendat people and predates both the Canadian Confederation and the US Declaration of Independence.
Judge blocks new Trump bid against birthright citizenship
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
A US federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a new executive order limiting who qualifies for birthright citizenship.
The move thwarts President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to restrict the constitutional right, which comes after the US supreme court rejected his previous effort, AFP reported.
US district judge Deborah Boardman of Maryland issued a preliminary injunction following an appeal by rights groups who challenged Trump’s executive order from 6 August targeting what he termed “birth tourism”.
“The supreme court has spoken: Children in the certified class are ’citizens at birth’,” Boardman wrote in her 35-page ruling, adding the president’s August order “is almost certainly unconstitutional”.
“When it comes to attacking birthright citizenship, the Trump administration has lost before this court, lost before the supreme court, and lost again today,” said Shana Khader, legal director at We Are CASA, a Maryland-based group.
Trump’s fresh executive order was aimed at those who he alleges enter the country under the guise of tourism while actually intending to give birth.
The president’s efforts to curb birthright citizenship are part of his wider campaign to limit immigration, which includes expelling millions of undocumented migrants and removing deportation protections from nationals of more than a dozen countries.
In other developments:
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House Democrats rejected a constitutional amendment proposed by Republicans to ensure the size of the supreme court is permanently capped at nine justices. The proposal, a Republican effort to make the supreme court a campaign issue ahead of the November midterms, failed 212-206.
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House Democratic lawmakers introduced a war powers resolution seeking to stop the Trump administration’s boat strikes. Gregory W Meeks, Adam Smith, Jim Himes and Bennie G Thompson said people have been killed “without due process” in attacks never authorized by Congress.
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Senator Richard Blumenthal pushed back against a statement from the US Postal Service about its new system to screen millions of mail-in ballots for the upcoming midterm elections. “‘Just trust us’ is not acceptable,” he said.
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Donald Trump celebrated the news that Apple had fulfilled his request to rename Lake Ontario to “Lake America” for Maps app users in the US following an executive order that came amid rising trade tensions between the US and Canada.
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The Pentagon introduced guidelines for the mandatory new testosterone deficiency screening required for service members age 30 and older, a policy introduced by Pete Hegseth last month.
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Trump – claiming that the US has control over the strait of Hormuz despite escalating conflict with Iran and extensive evidence to the contrary – has floated the idea of naming the critical waterway “TRUMP STRAIT”.
