Trump’s Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta tries to get himself off the Jeffrey Epstein hook, fails miserably
Alexander Acosta, Donald Trump’s Secretary of Labor, once was a prosecutor in Florida. As a United States Attorney, he granted a very lenient plea deal in 2007 to Jeffrey Epstein. Trump told the TV cameras today that he feels “very badly, actually, for Secretary Acosta.” Acosta appears to be trying to explain the lenient deal on his official Twitter account. In a series of tweets, Acosta wrote:
The crimes committed by Epstein are horrific, and I am pleased that NY prosecutors are moving forward with a case based on new evidence. With the evidence available more than a decade ago, federal prosecutors insisted that Epstein go to jail, register as a sex offender and put the world on notice that he was a sexual predator. Now that new evidence and additional testimony is available, the NY prosecution offers an important opportunity to more fully bring him to justice.
What is alleged here and back then is horrifying and sickening. At the time, in contravention of the law, it is alleged that Acosta did not inform the victims of the terms of the plea deal. We now have a Trump cabinet member expressing his pleasure with the New York prosecutors doing the job that he refused to do in 2007 or 2008, when Epstein kept his assets and was given a relative slap on the wrist for his crimes. Epstein received 13 months in county jail, free to go to his mansion all day and then come to the jail to spend the night. The potential penalty he faced was a life sentence.
More troubling, we have a president, the same guy who once said that Epstein likes girls on the “younger side,” defending yet another person in his administration whom he refuses to fire. It’s time for Acosta to go, and it’s time to determine what Trump and others knew and did with their friend Epstein.
Daniel is a lawyer writing and teaching about SCOTUS, and is the author of the book “The Chief Justices” about the SCOTUS as seen through the center seat.