(WASHINGTON) — Private equity billionaire Leon Black filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court against the House Oversight Committee and Chairman James Comer before failing to appear under subpoena for a deposition under oath before the panel as part of its probe into the government’s investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. 

After Black filed the suit and failed to appear for the deposition, Comer signaled that the committee may move to hold Black in contempt of Congress — but said he wants to gain consensus and examine the legal path ahead before proceeding.

“This is unacceptable,” Comer, R-Ky., said. “We’re very disappointed. I don’t think I need to tell anyone in here how important of a witness Mr. Black is to this investigation. So we’re going to huddle up as a committee and talk about next steps with respect to Mr. Black, and we’ll go from there.”

“I would hold him in contempt right now,” Comer added. “Of all the powerful billionaires and political people we brought in for interviews and depositions, this is the first time anyone’s filed suit. I don’t want to do anything to harm our chances in court.”

In June, the panel issued subpoenas to Black after he appeared for a transcribed interview and refused to answer questions. The subpoenas called for his appearance for a deposition, as well as the production of purported nondisclosure agreements that Epstein survivors have discussed with committee investigators.

Black’s lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asserts 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.”

Black’s attorneys also contend that the subpoenas would also “expose women who value their privacy,” who have no known or public connection to Epstein — while contending that the committee lacks statutory authority to enforce its subpoenas in federal court.

Black is seeking declaratory and injunctive relief preventing the committee from compelling compliance with the subpoenas.

“The Committee is on a fishing expedition that oversteps its authority and completely ignores its responsibility,” said Black’s attorney, Susan Estrich. “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.”

Black, who maintained a social relationship with Epstein since the mid-1990s and eventually paid him more than $170 million for “tax and estate planning advice,” according to the Senate Finance Committee, appeared in June before the Oversight panel as part of its ongoing Epstein probe.

Black has denied wrongdoing or knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, though his financial payments to Epstein served as a lifeline to the convicted sex offender in the years after Epstein’s 2008 prison sentence for soliciting a minor for prostitution.

With time running short on the 119th Congress, Comer and Rep. Robert Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the Oversight Committee, both believe Black is trying to run out the clock — complicating the committee’s effort to conclude its investigation before the end of the 119th Congress. 

“Obviously, we’re running up against the clock at the end of this Congress, I’m sure his legal team knows that. So we’ve got to be smart from here on in,” Comer said.

“What he’s trying to do is to slow the process down of getting us the information,” Garcia, D-Calif., said. “He’s very aware that Comer no longer is going to be the chairperson. But what Mr. Black should understand is that we will be even more aggressive than Chairman Comer as it relates to his testimony.”

“Leon Black provided over $180 million to Jeffrey Epstein. $180 million, and he has yet to tell the committee or the public as to exactly what that funded and why he did it,” Garcia said. 

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(WASHINGTON) — With government funding in the rear view, the House on Thursday canceled votes for the last two weeks of September, leaving just four days of legislative business before the Nov. 3 midterm elections — a reversal from Speaker Mike Johnson’s comments on the matter earlier this week.

After a vote series Friday morning, lawmakers will fly home for a district work period over the Labor Day holiday, as well as the Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas, Texas.

The House is scheduled to return on Sept. 14 for four days of legislative business — leaving on Sept. 17 for six full weeks of campaigning ahead of the midterm elections.

The sparse floor schedule is not particularly unusual for an election year — but is a reversal of Johnson’s position earlier this week when he told reporters that he did not intend to cancel any scheduled legislative business this month.

“Republicans are here to work,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday when pressed if GOP Rep. Thomas Massie’s prediction of a schedule change might come to fruition. “We have a schedule, a calendar that’s been out for a year. We are abiding by that calendar. We are going to work all the way through September and every day that’s on the calendar, so long as people like him don’t stop the progress.”

But earlier this week, the House passed government funding through Dec. 11 — clearing the speaker’s top legislative priority ahead of the election.

Lawmakers will return again for a lame duck session on Nov. 9 — scheduling five more weeks of legislative business before the end of the 119th Congress.

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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Mint announced Wednesday that $1 coins featuring President Donald Trump’s likeness have entered circulation and can be purchased on its website — a historic and controversial move for a living president that has not been done in 100 years.

In addition to the president’s portrait, the U.S. Mint said the coins commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, with inscriptions “1776 ~ 2026,” “LIBERTY” and “IN GOD WE TRUST.”

The rolls of $1 coins (25 to a roll) go for $61. A bag of 100 coins goes for $154.50, according to the Mint’s website. The coins can be used as legal tender.

“These coins are also in circulation, so check your pocket change. Collect them today!” the U.S. Mint wrote in a social media post Wednesday.

The coins are not real gold, but feature a gold-colored finish made of manganese brass. They were produced at the Philadelphia Mint, according to the Mint. It’s not clear how many coins were produced.

The Mint said 250,000 of the coins have a special “July 4th” markings, which were randomly included in the rolls and bags, and were struck on July Fourth at the Philadelphia Mint, according to the Mint’s website.

While living presidents are generally barred from appearing on U.S. currency, the Trump administration has argued that the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020 permits the design because it authorizes the Treasury secretary to oversee the minting of special coins for the nation’s Semiquincentennial. And while the same law bars any person from appearing on the tail side of a coin, the restriction doesn’t apply to its face — which is where Trump’s likeness appears on the new $1 coin.

The last and only time a living president was featured on hard currency struck by the U.S. Mint was a century ago for the U.S. Sesquicentennial. The silver half-dollar coin featured then-President Calvin Coolidge silhouetted behind the bust of President George Washington. At the time, the Mint produced a million of the coins with 860,000 of them ultimately returned and melted due to low demand.

The legality of the Trump coin’s production has come into question after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent failed to have the coin reviewed by the bipartisan Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, an 11-person body established by Congress to advise the secretary on designs of hard currency, according to members of the committee.

The Treasury pushed back on the criticism, saying that it offered the committee “multiple reasonable opportunities to review proposed designs” but that it declined.

“Accordingly, the Mint’s statutory obligation to seek CCAC review has been fulfilled,” U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach wrote in a statement in March, adding that Bessent has “sole discretion on final design selection.”

There is currently a household order limit of two items that will remain in place until 2 p.m. ET on Sept. 3, according to the U.S. Mint.

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(WASHINGTON) — Officials in Texas’ third most populous county voted on Tuesday to reduce polling locations by 92.

The move will see Tarrant County’s voting sites reduced from 316 in the 2022 midterm elections to 224 for this year’s elections.

Tuesday’s vote took place during a meeting of the five-member Commissioner’s Court, which is the governing body of the county.

It came amid public outcry from dozens of residents opposing the measure during public meetings over the past month.

“People have fought and died for the right to vote,” Tarrant County resident Catherine Godby said.

She said it’s “wrong to suppress” the right to vote.

“You’re on the wrong side of history,” she said. “You’re dishonoring what it means to be an American, and more than that, you’re losing your humanity.”

Democratic commissioners Alisa Simmons and Rodrick Miles Jr. voted against the cuts, while the Republicans on the court — County Judge Tim O’Hare and commissioners Matt Krause and Manny Ramirez — voted for the proposal.

The vote on Tuesday came a year after the board approved a proposal that cut nearly half of all early voting locations in the county ahead of 2025 election, according to Dallas ABC station WFAA.

Republicans in favor of the measure argued that the number of polling locations after the cuts would still meet the mandatory minimum. They also cited efforts to cut costs, citing low voter turnout at various polling locations.

O’Hare, who vote for the measure, told ABC News in a statement on Monday that under the new proposal, there will still be 54 polling places that exceed the statutory minimum for Election Day.

“The updated plan averages 2.85 miles between early voting locations and 1.56 miles between Election Day polling locations. All of this is accomplished without the wasteful practice of placing polling sites directly across the street from one another,” O’Hare said.

The county judge said “some locations changed for practical reasons,” including some buildings no longer operating and some not meeting Americans with Disabilities Act requirements.

“State law also requires early voting equipment to be stored in a locked room,” he added. “Those are legislative requirements, and this county follows them. Every voter deserves a safe, accessible location with secure equipment, and this plan does that.”

Miles, one of Democratic commissioners, told ABC News in a statement on Monday that he intends to oppose the proposal because it reduces polling locations overall.

“Our population hasn’t shrunk. Our electorate hasn’t shrunk. I need a clear, convincing explanation for why a growing county is providing meaningfully fewer places to vote and I haven’t gotten one yet,” he said.

“Our job isn’t to calculate the fewest locations we can legally operate. It’s to make sure every eligible resident has a fair and meaningful opportunity to vote. The legal minimum cannot become the moral standard,” he added.

Tarrant County, which is in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, has more than 2.2 million residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and 1.3 million registered voters, county data shows.

The county, which has a growing Hispanic population, is about 40% white, 31% Hispanic and Latino, 19% Black and 7% Asian, the 2025 U.S. Census numbers show.

“The minimum is never my standard, and it should not be a standard of a county this size,” Simmons, who voted against the proposal, said during a press conference on Sunday.

Texas state Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate running against Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, also expressed opposition to the proposal during the press conference on Sunday.

“It’s nearly a third of the polling locations in Tarrant County, and that means on election day there will be longer commutes, longer lines and lower voter turnout, especially in our Black and brown communities,” he said.

Krause, who voted for the proposal, pushed back on the argument that reducing voting locations would suppress the vote, telling ABC News in a statement on Monday that the new proposal “unequivocally” gives all of the county’s registered voters the opportunity to exercise their Democratic right.

“There are voting locations within close proximity to most everyone in Tarrant County,” he added.

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(WASHINGTON) — An anonymous government employee whistleblower has come forward to Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, warning that a “rushed, chaotic and fundamentally flawed” effort by the U.S. Postal Service to implement President Donald Trump’s mail-in ballot executive order risks a “catastrophic failure” of the election system that could “derail the midterm elections.”

The whistleblower’s concerns were made public in a report released by Blumenthal, who said in a release Tuesday morning that the allegations show that the system USPS is creating to track mail-in balloting is “set up to fail — and risk the right to vote for millions of Americans who cast their ballots by mail.”

The whistleblower is described in the report as someone with direct knowledge of potentially “catastrophic problems” in the development of the USPS’ new electronic federal mail ballot portal.

Under the new proposed system, states would be required to report basic voter information, such as a voter’s name and home address, attached to a unique barcode on every mail-in ballot distributed. Postal workers would then only deliver ballots addressed to voters who appear on the state-provided list. 

The new USPS system, published formally last week, was temporarily put on hold by a federal judge as she considers whether it is likely unlawful and should be blocked during an ongoing legal battle. It’s unclear what parts, if any, will be allowed to take effect in time for the November election. 

The USPS rules fall short of Trump’s expectations in his executive order.

The first mail-in ballots go out to overseas military voters from North Carolina this Friday. Given the length of the legal battle ahead, it’s unlikely Trump’s proposed changes to mail-in voting will be implemented in time for the midterm elections.

Voter advocates and civil liberties groups worry the rules could prevent some legitimate, eligible voters from receiving ballots. They fear an added bureaucratic layer — such as having to submit lists to a federal portal to be administered by USPS — unduly introduces the risk of errors not to mention the potential for federal meddling.

The whistleblower report also alleges that officials may have defied a prior court-ordered pause, continuing work on the USPS system despite a judge’s instructions.

Blumenthal wrote a letter to Postmaster General and CEO David Steiner on Monday demanding further answers to questions related to allegation raised by the whistleblower and to urge him to “abandon this ill-conceived, unconscionable plan and ensure that all Americans can exercise their constitutional right to vote, including by mail, without interference by USPS.”

ABC News reached out to USPS and the White House for comment on Blumenthal’s letter, but did not immediately receive a response.

‘Slapdash’ assembly of new portal could lead to major issues in November

The whistleblower described a “secretive, rushed, chaotic and fundamentally flawed process” creating and implementing an “untested” federal ballot mail portal that USPS will use to screen ballots.

The rushed effort to create the portal could cause “significant operating” problems and the failure to verify ballots this November, the whistleblower said. It could also mean, the report alleges, that “potentially millions of American voters may not receive their mail-in ballot this election cycle in a timely manner or at all.”

The report details a “slapdash” production process for the new IT software, which the whistleblower alleges hasn’t been sufficiently tested or debugged. At the time of report, the whistleblower said there was insufficient time to test the system before a Sept. 1 deadline to deliver it.

“According to the whistleblower, USPS’s effort to develop and deploy the Portal has been ‘rushed,’ ‘risky and haphazard’ because leadership has demanded a impossible timeframe. In an effort to meet impossible deadlines, USPS has eliminated standard and needed testing, thereby creating substantial risk of a ‘catastrophic failure’ of the system that could ‘derail the midterm elections,'” Blumenthal wrote in his letter to Steiner.

Blumenthal also raised concerns about a new so-called “zero percent failure rate” which, according to the whistleblower, could see whole batches of ballots being rejected if a barcode on even one ballot fails to scan. 

“Voters intending to cast ballots by mail may not even be aware that their ballots have been rejected, or were part of a rejected batch, until it is too late to secure an alternative ballot or vote in person,” Blumenthal wrote.

Whistleblower alleges that work on USPS portal potentially violated court orders

The whistleblower also alleges that — after a one-month pause on work that began in June — employees were told to continue working on the mail-in-ballot portal in July despite an active temporary restraining order from a federal judge ordering a pause on work related to Trump’s mail-in-ballot executive order.

“The project was suddenly resumed without explanation of what authority permitted USPS to ignore the court order,” according to the whistleblower report. 

The USPS is currently under a 14-day Temporary Restraining Order issued by Judge Indira Talwani prohibiting it from implementing its new rules for mail ballots ahead of the November election. The judge is hearing arguments on Thursday as to whether to extend the TRO to a preliminary injunction during litigation. 

The same judge has already accused the administration of flouting a previous order that had blocked any finalization of the rules while she was considering the matter. 

“Based on this timeline, USPS should have ceased all work on the Portal on June 25, 2026, with the earliest conceivable date to resume being August 26, 2026. The whistleblower allegations demonstrate that was not the case, with USPS directing work to continue on the Portal after the first court order to cease work and prior to the recent court decisions allowing USPS to proceed,” Blumenthal wrote to Steiner. 

For most voters, nothing is likely to change how they cast ballots by mail in the midterm elections. But the longer the court hold remains in place — and the longer the court fight takes — the less likely it is that any of the rules will practically impact November.

Still, the battle over these rules and any additional ones Trump may seek to impose will continue well into 2028, where the effects could most significantly be felt. 

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