Yesterday, at the White House, Leon Black’s 40-year-old son Ben was sworn in by J. D. Vance as C.E.O. of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. For Black, the billionaire co-founder of private-equity firm Apollo Global Management, the swearing-in was a proud moment. But given that he is currently under investigation by Senator Ron Wyden for the millions that he paid the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein—allegedly for tax- and estate-planning services—and that Congress recently compelled the Department of Justice to release its remaining Epstein files, his son’s appointment to such a powerful post comes at a particularly fraught time.
Back in September, the House Oversight Committee released Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th-birthday book, which had been assembled for him by Ghislaine Maxwell in 2003. Inside, there were personalized greetings from dozens of well-known figures including Bill Clinton and Trump, whose entry reportedly consisted of a now notorious sketch of a nude woman with Trump’s signature standing in for pubic hair. (Trump has claimed that his signature is a forgery, and he is suing The Wall Street Journal, the paper that broke the story, for defamation.)
