Trump appointee leading $205bn US agency had personal ties to Epstein, emails show

Ben Black, the head of a little-known government investment agency funded by billions of dollars from US taxpayers, had personal and business ties to Jeffrey Epstein , according to emails and business filings released by the Department of Justice. His father, Leon Black, had once been the disgraced financier’s highest paying client – calling on the convicted sex offender for tax advice and to orchestrate payments to women, according to the New York Times and Bloomberg . A Guardian review of more than 5,000 records from Epstein’s private correspondence found that Ben Black invested in the same company as the financier in 2011 and that the two men had a relationship for several years afterwards. Epstein told a friend that he attended Ben Black’s 30th birthday , advised him on the purchase of an $11.5m townhouse and helped one woman compose messages to him. She wrote to Epstein to say that she and Black had kissed the following day. Now Black holds a Senate-confirmed position overseeing the Development Finance Corporation (DFC), the Trump administration’s largest overseas investment arm. The agency was previously confined to work in low-income countries, but Congress recently cleared it to invest in high-income countries and tripled its lending cap to $205bn, greatly expanding Black’s influence over taxpayer funds. Ben Black at a panel discussion during the Milken Institute global conference in Beverly Hills, California, on 3 May 2022. …