Trump Labor Secretary Alex Acosta resigns amid pressure from Jeffrey Epstein sex traffic case
KEY POINTS
- Labor Secretary Alex Acosta says he will resign amid controversy over the way he handled a sex crimes case against wealthy businessman Jeffrey Epstein a decade ago when Acosta was U.S. attorney for southern Florida.
- The issue resurfaces when the politically connected Epstein, whose friends have included President Trump and former President Bill Clinton, is arrested on sex trafficking charges on July 6.
- Leading Democratic presidential candidates, including Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, have demanded that Acosta quit.
Labor Secretary Alex Acosta said Friday he will resign amid controversy over the way he handled a sex crimes case against wealthy businessman Jeffrey Epstein a decade ago when he was U.S. attorney for southern Florida.
Acosta made the announcement to reporters while standing next to President Donald Trump outside the White House. Trump said Acosta had called him Friday morning and that it was Acosta’s decision to quit.
The issue resurfaced on July 6, when the politically connected Epstein, whose friends have included Trump and former President Bill Clinton,
was arrested on sex trafficking charges by federal prosecutors in New York last week.
Epstein is accused of luring dozens of underage girls to his Manhattan mansion to give him massages that escalated into sex acts. He is charged in New York with one count of sex trafficking of minors and one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors.
Epstein had long been under investigation by both federal and local law enforcement for sex crimes against underage girls that took place from 2002 to 2005 in New York and Florida.
Acosta, as U.S. attorney for southern Florida, struck a secret plea deal with Epstein allowing him to avoid federal prosecution on similar charges more than a decade earlier.
Acosta’s team struck the plea deal with Epstein in 2008,
according to the Miami Herald, concealing the number and extent of his crimes from his victims. The deal allowed Epstein to avoid federal prosecution and shuttered an ongoing FBI investigation that might have revealed other victims and accomplices.
Epstein was required to register as a sex offender, and ended up serving a custodial sentence of 13 months in jail, where he was allowed out during the day on work release.
Alex Acosta is the
445th person to leave the Trump administration since the beginning