Acosta does himself no good

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By Jennifer Rubin
July 10 at 5:00 PM

President Trump reportedly told Labor Secretary Alex Acosta to go out and defend himself in a news conference to quell the firestorm set off by the indictment of billionaire Jeffrey Epstein on charges of sex trafficking. In 2008, when Acosta was U.S. attorney in Miami, his office struck a deal with Epstein in secret, so victims did not have a chance to raise objections. Acosta was unapologetic and weirdly unemotional during a nearly one-hour news conference ...

At times, his answers were downright bizarre. He argued he did not want to inform victims of efforts to gain them restitution because if it fell through, they would look like money-grubbers and hence not credible if they later testified. But the deal was later ruled illegal, in violation of victims’ rights laws. If “afraid to taint witnesses in a case I was afraid to try” were the standard, no victim would ever be informed before a plea deal. Former Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller observes, “His explanation was consistent with the entire news conference: lacking any willingness at all to show contrition or regret to the victims” ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/07/10/acosta-does-himself-trump-no-good/?utm_term=.0d7aacf169f7

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1. The question Acosta failed to answer

By Aaron Blake
July 10 at 3:54 PM

... There are many questions emanating from the Epstein plea deal Acosta agreed to as a U.S. attorney in Miami ...

Chief among them is this one: Why did that decision have to be made right then and there? If the evidence wasn’t there yet to be confident in a large-scale federal case, why not investigate further and hopefully uncover what federal prosecutors in New York revealed on Monday?

As we’ve found out in recent days, there was clearly more evidence there to discover. The new indictment involves conduct that allegedly took place between 2002 and 2005 — years before the plea deal — and spanned Epstein’s homes in New York and Palm Beach, Fla. But the deal Acosta cut with Epstein included a non-prosecution agreement that effectively ended the investigation. The non-prosecution agreement was included in the deal even though, as we found out last year in a newly revealed FBI document, the FBI was still interviewing potential witnesses and victims “from across the United States” at the time.

NBC News’s Peter Alexander asked Acosta that question — why not just keep investigating? — but Acosta didn’t fully answer it. He instead emphasized that it only shut down the investigation in the Southern District of Florida and that the victims who were known at the time were allowed to pursue civil litigation ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/10/big-question-alex-acosta-didnt-sufficiently-answer/?utm_term=.91b0b02f859d

Some people with dirty minds might actually wonder if Epstein had compromising pictures of Acosta

[SWBTATTReg]

2. Obviously Acosta didn't do his job, why would NY have to step up to the plate? In the...

meantime, E continued his predatory ways in other states and wasn't deterred one bit. Acosta failed at his job and should be subject to lawsuits from the victims since he failed in his sworn duty.

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3. Deal looks worse every day

image
BY CHARLES P. PIERCE

... It was a perfectly Trumpian press conference: Acosta denied the plain facts in front of the world, blamed a whole host of other people for how ridiculous the plea deal looks now, declared himself a victim of changing mores, discreetly assigned the press some of his own problems, and generally emphasized that his agreement with Epstein was the best he could get at the time. Whether that's enough to save his job is still an open question, but he's certainly with the administration*'s program on dealing with political crises, especially if there is sexual misconduct involved ...

... Having said he stepped in because he thought the state prosecutors might bungle the case, according to what he said on Wednesday, Acosta realized that his own case was so weak that he negotiated a now-notorious featherbed of a non-prosecution deal ...

And the only reason he put on this performance in the first place was that the New York prosecutors busted Epstein and made Acosta's dive look even more egregious ...

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a28355549/alex-acosta-jeffrey-epstein-plea-deal-press-conference/

[Caliman73]

4. It depends.

He serves at the pleasure of Trump and so his performance may have only been about pleasing Trump. He defended himself in a way that many of us think was bizarre and ineffective, but then we are the "loser Democrat Party" and the "fake media". Did he convince Trump that he holds enough contempt for the rest of us? That is what is important. Will this go away? or at least, Will it be taken away from Trump's immediate sight?

That is what we need to be asking. Acosta is a loathsome slug, but then Trump only hires the best people.

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5. Acosta defends sleazy deal

BY TINA NGUYEN
JULY 10, 2019

... Acosta’s potentially skeezy ties to Epstein first resurfaced in November 2018, when the Miami Herald reported that the Labor secretary, then the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, struck a deal with Epstein’s lawyers regarding an FBI probe into allegations that Epstein ran a massive sex trafficking ring that involved girls as young as 14. The deal reduced Epstein’s punishment from a life sentence in federal prison to a sentence of 18 months in county jail, and granted him immunity from federal charges. Furthermore, it granted blanket immunity to several unnamed co-conspirators, possibly the powerful people who may have enabled his operation. And in a move that a federal judge eventually ruled unconstitutional, Acosta did not inform the victims of the deal’s details. At the time of the report, Acosta did not release a statement ...

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/alex-acosta-jeffrey-epstein-press-conference

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6. Acosta has no good answer

By Anna North
Jul 10, 2019, 6:30pm EDT

... Acosta’s appearance on Wednesday left many questions unanswered, including the biggest one: why someone who let Epstein get away with a light sentence should remain in charge of an office that deals with human trafficking cases ...

Acosta avoided using the word “prison,” because unlike with some of the other sex crimes cases his office prosecuted, Epstein didn’t go to prison — he served his time in a county jail facility. He was also allowed to leave the facility on “work release” to go to an office for multiple hours per day, six days a week, raising the question of how meaningful his jail sentence really was.

Acosta also talked about the importance of making sure that Epstein registered as a sex offender. “The world needed to be on notice that he was a sexual predator,” he said.

Epstein was indeed required to register in New York and the US Virgin Islands, where he has homes, but not in New Mexico, where he also has a residence. His registration also did not prevent him from extensive international travel — or, apparently, from amassing a trove of nude photos of seemingly underage girls at his home in New York ...

https://www.vox.com/2019/7/10/20689416/jeffrey-epstein-alexander-acosta-labor-secretary-deal

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7. Alex says real hero of Epstein story is Acosta!

RYAN BORT

... Acosta essentially blamed the state of Florida, which he says would have only indicted Epstein on a single charge that would have resulted in “no jail time and no restitution to the victim” — that is, if Acosta hadn’t intervened. “The Palm Beach state attorney’s office was ready to let Epstein walk free,” Acosta said, which his office found to be “unacceptable.” Instead, Acosta says he offered Epstein an ultimatum: plead guilty to slightly more serious charges than those brought by the state, or his office would “roll the dice” and bring a federal indictment.

He deflected blame once again when addressing why Epstein’s alleged victims were not notified of the plea deal ...

Though scores of Democratic lawmakers have called for Acosta’s resignation in light of the new charges filed against Epstein, President Trump has stood by his labor secretary ...

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/actually-alex-acosta-is-the-hero-of-the-epstein-story-alex-acosta-says-857576/

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8. Unrepentant

ADAM KLASFELD

... “We believe that we proceeded appropriately,” the former U.S. attorney declared, praising federal prosecutors in New York for having brought new charges against Epstein over the weekend.

“He’s a bad man, and he needs to be put away,” Acosta said of Epstein, a 66-year-old financier who is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York pending a bail determination.

Acosta had been the Southern District of Florida’s top prosecutor back when Epstein entered into a “global” agreement that shielded his co-conspirators with immunity from prosecution. The disgraced financier went on to serve little a 13-month sentence in a county jail for federal offenses, being granted work leave from that facility six out of seven days every week.

Epstein secured that arrangement by pleading guilty in Florida to two state-level charges of soliciting prostitution under statutes that allow for work release ...

https://www.courthousenews.com/new-epstein-accuser-goes-to-court-as-acosta-plays-defense/

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9. Alex does terrible job defending himself

Rafi Schwartz
Today 4:11pm

... Perhaps most striking about Acosta’s pass-the-buck tactic was his steadfast refusal to straightforwardly apologize to the victims. Asked if he had any regrets about the light sentence Epstein was handed, Acosta doubled down on his insistence that he’d done everything by the book ...

https://splinternews.com/acosta-has-no-regrets-about-how-he-handled-epsteins-cas-1836255238

[KY_EnviroGuy]

10. S4P, thank you! Bookmarked.

.............

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11. Charges raise grave questions about Acosta

By Editorial Board July 10 at 7:13 PM

ELEVEN YEARS later, Jeffrey Epstein’s accusers have another shot at the justice they say they were denied when then-U.S. Attorney — and now Labor Secretary — Alexander Acosta cut him a lenient non-prosecution agreement in a major sex-crimes case. Still left unanswered is why it took so long for the Justice Department to pursue Mr. Epstein with the assertiveness his alleged crimes deserve. A Wednesday news conference by Mr. Acosta did not adequately explain or excuse the delay.

Federal prosecutors in New York, where the wealthy financier owns a mansion, released a 14-page indictment on Monday alleging that Mr. Epstein engaged in sex trafficking and sex-trafficking conspiracy by creating “a vast network of underage victims for him to sexually exploit.” Mr. Epstein allegedly lured these victims to his homes to perform massages but would then pay them to engage in a range of sex acts. The indictment also alleges that Mr. Epstein would pay some of these victims to recruit others, creating a sort of sex pyramid scheme, and that the victims were as young as 14 years old. The allegations are strikingly similar to those Mr. Epstein faced when Mr. Acosta examined his behavior 11 years ago yet allowed him to plead not to any federal charge, but to state charges of soliciting prostitution, for which he served 13 months in a county jail.

Mr. Acosta insisted on Wednesday that, at the time, “based on the evidence, there was value to getting a guilty plea,” as opposed to “rolling the dice” on a trial. That raises the question of why federal prosecutors appear willing to roll the dice now. Mr. Acosta on Tuesday tweeted that “new evidence and additional testimony is available” that would allow “an important opportunity to more fully bring him to justice.”

There is some new evidence available, in part because of the work of New York prosecutors and in part because of a superb investigation by Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown. Yet that investigation revealed that Florida officials a decade ago believed the evidence against Mr. Epstein was already “overwhelming, including phone call records, copies of written phone messages from the girls found in Epstein’s trash and Epstein’s flight logs.” If there was more evidence to be found, a more committed prosecution might have unearthed it 11 years ago ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-jeffrey-epstein-charges-raise-grave-questions-about-alexander-acosta/2019/07/10/a9855142-a287-11e9-b732-41a79c2551bf_story.html?utm_term=.2f60bb0cb7fa