Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta took to Twitter to defend his 2007 decision, as a U.S. attorney, not to prosecute billionaire sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, and it was … less than convincing.
“The crimes committed by Epstein are horrific, and I am pleased that NY prosecutors are moving forward with a case based on new evidence,” Acosta wrote, continuing, “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.”
This is Acosta’s defense: Not prosecuting Epstein on federal charges got him to plead guilty on state charges, which guaranteed jail time. So really, Acosta’s argument goes, prosecuting Epstein for far more significant federal charges would have let him off the hook, because he might have been acquitted. One suspects that the federal prisons are filled with people who wouldn’t mind having gotten this kind of guarantee.
Acosta wants us to believe that the evidence in the federal case was too weak to risk taking to court—but the federal judge who ruled that Acosta and his team broke a victims’ rights law by not keeping Epstein’s victims informed of the deal implied that the evidence was strong enough to merit charges. That same judge called out the federal prosecutors for spending “untold hours negotiating” with Epstein’s attorneys, while “scant information was shared with victims.” In other words, the rich guy with fancy lawyers got more deference from Acosta’s team than the powerless teenagers he’d preyed on, and Acosta’s claims about the weak evidence are questionable.
But, oh, Acosta is so happy that there’s new evidence meriting federal charges. It's “an important opportunity to more fully bring him to justice,” as if Epstein was ever really brought to justice at all.
The thing is, this argument is good enough for Senate Republicans. Politico reports that “after hearing his explanation,” “the only way for jail time was to make the agreement,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito was satisfied. Other Republicans don’t even seem to need to hear an explanation from Acosta. And, while Acosta may be on shaky ground in the White House because he’s not aggressively anti-worker enough to satisfy acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Donald Trump doesn't seem worried about the Epstein issue, saying that “you know if you go back and look at everybody else's decisions... you would find that maybe they would wish they did it a different way.” Attorney General William Barr, meanwhile, isn't recusing himself from the new prosecution of Epstein, even though he previously concluded that he had a conflict of interest that made it appropriate for him to recuse himself from the investigation into the earlier Florida deal.
It’s government of, by, and for—especially for—the ultrawealthy.
