The Epstein Files: The Blackmail of Billionaire Leon Black and Epstein's Role in It
Black's downfall — despite paying tens of millions in extortion demands — illustrates how potent and valuable intimate secrets are in Epstein's world of oligarchs and billionaires.
One of the towering questions hovering over the Epstein saga was whether the illicit sexual activities of the world’s most powerful people were used as blackmail by Epstein or by intelligence agencies with whom (or for whom) he worked. The Trump administration now insists that no such blackmail occurred.
Top law enforcement officials in the Trump administration — such as Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino — spent years vehemently denouncing the Biden administration for hiding Epstein’s “client list,” as well as concealing details about Epstein’s global blackmail operations. Yet last June, these exact same officials suddenly announced, in the words of their joint DOJ-FBI statement, that their “exhaustive review” found no “client list” nor any “credible evidence … that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions.” They also assured the public that they were certain, beyond any doubt, that Epstein killed himself.
There are still many files that remain heavily and inexplicably redacted. But, from the files that have been made public, we know one thing for certain. One of Epstein’s two key benefactors — the hedge fund billionaire Leon Black, who paid Epstein at least $158 million from 2012 through 2017 — was aggressively blackmailed over his sexual conduct. (Epstein’s second most-important benefactor was the billionaire Les Wexner, a major pro-Israel donor who cut off ties in 2008 after Epstein repaid Wexner $100 million for money Wexner alleged Epstein had stolen from him).
Despite that $100 million repayment in 2008 to Wexner, Epstein had accumulated so much wealth through his involvement with Wexner that it barely made a dent. He was able to successfully “pilfer” such a mind-boggling amount of money because he had been given virtually unconstrained access to, and power over, every aspect of Wexner’s life. Wexner even gave Epstein power of attorney and had him oversee his children’s trusts. And Epstein, several years later, created a similar role with Leon Black, one of the richest hedge fund billionaires of his generation.
Epstein’s 2008 conviction and imprisonment due to his guilty plea on a charge of “soliciting a minor for prostitution” began mildly hindering his access to the world’s billionaires. It was at this time that he lost Wexner as his font of wealth due to Wexner’s belief that Epstein stole from him.
But Epstein’s world was salvaged, and ultimately thrived more than ever, as a result of the seemingly full-scale dependence that Leon Black developed on Epstein. As he did with Wexner, Epstein insinuated himself into every aspect of the billionaire’s life — financial, political, and personal — and, in doing so, obtained innate, immense power over Black.
The recently released Epstein files depict the blackmail and extortion schemes to which Black was subjected. One of the most vicious and protracted arose out of a six-year affair he carried on with a young Russian model, who then threatened in 2015 to expose everything to Black’s wife and family, and “ruin his life,” unless he paid her $100 million. But Epstein himself also implicitly, if not overtly, threatened Black in order to extract millions more in payments after Black, in 2016, sought to terminate their relationship.
While the sordid matter of Black’s affair has been previously reported — essentially because the woman, Guzel Ganieva, went public and sued Black, accusing him of “rape and assault,” even after he paid her more than $9 million out of a $21 million deal he made with her to stay silent — the newly released emails provide very vivid and invasive details about how desperately Black worked to avoid public disclosure of his sex life. The broad outlines of these events were laid out in a Bloomberg report on Sunday, but the text of emails provide a crucial look into how these blackmail schemes in Epstein World operated.
Epstein was central to all of this. That is why the emails describing all of this in detail are now publicly available: because they were all sent by Black or his lawyers to Epstein, and are thus now part of the Epstein Files.
Once Ganieva began blackmailing and extorting Black with her demands for $100 million — which she repeatedly said was her final, non-negotiable offer — Black turned to Epstein to tell him how to navigate this. (Black’s other key advisor was Brad Karp, who was forced to resign last week as head of the powerful Paul, Weiss law firm due to his extensive involvement with Epstein).
From the start of Ganieva’s increasingly unhinged threats against Black, Epstein became a vital advisor. In 2015, Epstein drafted a script for what he thought Black should tell his mistress, and emailed that script to himself.
Epstein included an explicit threat that Black would have Russian intelligence — the Federal Security Service (FSB) — murder Ganieva, because, Epstein argued, failure to resolve this matter with an American businessman important to the Russian economy would make her an “enemy of the state” in the eyes of the Russian government. Part of Epstein’s suggested script for Black is as follows (spelling and grammatical errors maintained from the original correspondents):
you should also know that I felt it necessary to contact some friends in FSB, and I though did not give them your name. They explained to me in no uncertain terms that especially now , when Russia is trying to bring in outside investors , as you know the economy sucks, and desperately investment that a person that would attempt to blackmail a us businessman would immeditaly become in the 21 century, what they terms . vrag naroda meant in the 20th they translated it for me as the enemy of the people, and would e dealt with extremely harshly , as it threatened the economies of teh country. So i expect never ever to hear a threat from you again.
In a separate email to Karp, Black’s lawyer, Epstein instructs him to order surveillance on the woman’s whereabouts by using the services of Nardello & Co., a private spy and intelligence agency used by the world’s richest people.
Black’s utter desperation for Ganieva not to reveal their affair is viscerally apparent from the transcripts of multiple lunches he had with her throughout 2015, which he secretly tape-recorded. His law firm, Paul, Weiss, had those recordings transcribed, and those were sent to Epstein.
To describe these negotiations as torturous would be an understatement. But it is worth taking a glimpse to see how easily and casually blackmail and extortion were used in this world...