Alex Acosta, a former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida and Trump’s first labor secretary, testified Friday before the House Oversight Committee about his role in the first federal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
That investigation, of course, ended in 2007 with the infamous “non-prosecution agreement” in which the Justice Department promised not to charge Epstein for any crimes investigated by the DOJ and the FBI in exchange for his pleading guilty to a single state count of solicitation of prostitution and registering as a sex offender. Through that deal, Epstein ultimately served only 13 months in a county jail, which allowed him to spend up to 12 hours a day, six days a week at his West Palm Beach office via a work-release program. Meanwhile, Epstein’s victims, as well as the general public, were left in the dark about the deal’s very existence until roughly July 2008.
Eighteen years after that deal was signed, many people — from the survivors of Epstein’s trafficking to members of Congress — understandably still have a lot of questions for Acosta. And while I have no insight into House Oversight’s plans, I do have some pressing questions of my own, based on a review of court documents and other public records related to the Epstein investigations.
To start, this is not Acosta’s first rodeo, so to speak. In February 2019, the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility opened an investigation into possible misconduct by the five Florida federal prosecutors, including Acosta, who were involved in the Epstein deal. During that investigation, which culminated in a November 2020 report that ran to more than 300 pages, Acosta furnished OPR with written responses about his “involvement in the federal investigation of Epstein, the drafting and execution of the non-prosecution agreement, and decisions relating to victim notification and consultation” and participated in what the report describes as “extensive interviews of each subject under oath and before a court reporter.”
I’d ask Acosta why the feds played a role in negotiating victims’ ability to seek compensation.
So to ensure the veracity of his testimony, I’d first ask Acosta whether he will voluntarily provide Congress with a transcript of those prior interviews, especially given that the House Oversight Committee has received limited information that was not already in the public domain.
Second, the so-called deal of a lifetime contained terms beyond the specific charge that Epstein would plead to and how much jail time he would serve. In particular, it obligated federal prosecutors to provide Epstein with a list of his own victims to facilitate the recovery of damages by those who were minors at the time of their trafficking or abuse. In exchange, Epstein agreed to pay for victims’ lawyers, who were to be jointly selected by him and federal prosecutors, and not to contest liability to those listed victims — but only as long as their claims were limited under a particular federal statute. I’d ask Acosta why the feds played a role in negotiating victims’ ability to seek compensation, especially when they never involved the victims or their lawyers in negotiating the deal. And does Acosta understand now, in retrospect, that by identifying individuals known to the U.S. Attorney’s Office as victims, the Justice Department only further enabled Epstein to manipulate, control and even threaten those who survived his heinous crimes?
Third, the nonprosecution agreement also bound the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida not to prosecute any of Epstein’s co-conspirators, including four specifically named women who have been described as recruiters, “massage” schedulers and/or direct participants in the abuse of others. A lawyer for one of those women, Nadia Marcinkova, recently told Bloomberg that the public depiction of their client itself reflects the extent of Epstein’s depravity. “He physically, sexually, and emotionally abused, dehumanized, and completely controlled [Nadia] for years,” she said.
So I’d ask Acosta whether it occurred to him and his colleagues whether some of the girls and women accused by Epstein’s victims might themselves have been subject to his coercion and control. I’d ask whether he and his team — given the dubious credibility of Epstein’s account of events — sought to interview the women Epstein’s lawyers identified as his accomplices. Or did prosecutors see the women as, at best, willing participants — or at worst, people who, like Epstein, had serious criminal exposure?
And finally, in the hope that with time and age comes some humility and a willingness to accept responsibility, I’d ask Acosta a series of more open-ended questions:
- The nonprosecution agreement specifically committed to the abrupt and premature end of the Florida-based investigation, and, in any event, it obligated the feds to lay off any potential co-conspirators. In retrospect, does Acosta regret not widening the aperture?
- At any point since 2009, has Acosta met with any of Epstein’s survivors and/or their counsel to consider his role in their ongoing trauma and pain? Does he want to say anything to them now?
- Does he know how many girls or women were sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein after his release from jail, including during his year of house arrest, when he nonetheless traveled to New York and to his private island?
- Having apparently testified to DOJ that he had no information to indicate that Epstein was an intelligence asset, can Acosta provide any information as to why a redacted September 2008 FBI memo states Epstein has “provided information to the FBI, as agreed upon” and what that process entailed?
But perhaps the most significant question is the one we are now asking again, as President Donald Trump places unqualified loyalists throughout the DOJ and prepares to fire veteran prosecutors: When Acosta was first named by then-President George W. Bush as a 36-year-old U.S. attorney, lacking prior experience as a criminal lawyer, much less a federal prosecutor, does Acosta believe he was sufficiently prepared to do justice without fear or favor?
Lisa Rubin is MS NOW's senior legal reporter and a former litigator.