Labor secretary to resign over handling of Epstein case
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s embattled labor secretary, Alex Acosta, on Friday announced his plans to resign as controversy lingered over his handling of a sex crimes case involving a financier, Jeffrey Epstein, when Acosta was a federal prosecutor in Florida.
Trump said Acosta had called him Friday morning and informed him of his decision to step down.
“He felt the constant drumbeat of press about a prosecution which took place under his watch more than 12 years ago was bad for the Administration, which he so strongly believes in, and he graciously tendered his resignation,” the president wrote in a Twitter post after he stood with Acosta on the South Lawn of the White House and spoke to reporters before leaving for Milwaukee and Cleveland.
Acosta’s resignation, effective July 19, brings to four the number of Cabinet agencies led by acting secretaries. The department’s deputy secretary, Patrick Pizzella, would assuming the role of acting secretary, Trump said.
Trouble for Acosta started this week when federal prosecutors in New York brought new charges against Epstein, accusing him of child sex trafficking and reviving concerns about the federal government’s handling of accusations against him more than a decade ago. The new charges also returned attention to Trump’s previous relationship with Epstein, whom he described as “a terrific guy” in 2002, and provided a new line of attack for some Democratic presidential candidates.
“This was him, not me,” the president said of Acosta’s decision to resign, adding that Acosta has been a “great, great secretary” and a “tremendous talent” who is “a Hispanic man. He went to Harvard, a great student.” The resignation came two days after Acosta convened a news conference to defend his actions in the Epstein case in 2008, when Acosta was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida.
Acosta has said the decision was the best under the circumstances at the time to ensure that Epstein would face jail time. Going to trial with the goal of a harsher sentence, he said, would have been “a roll of the dice.” He said he wanted to help Epstein’s victims. “And that’s what the prosecutors of my office did — they insisted that he go to jail and put the world on notice that he was and is a sexual predator,” he said.
Acosta offered a similar defense to senators during his confirmation to be labor secretary in 2017, when he weathered criticism about the Epstein plea deal and won confirmation in a 60-38 vote. But this week’s hourlong explanation appeared insufficient to stem outrage after new federal charges revealed lewd details about Epstein’s relations with vulnerable and underage girls.
Prosecutors accused Epstein and his employees of running a sex-trafficking scheme to bring dozens of girls — some as young as 14 — to his homes in New York and Palm Beach, Fla., from 2002 to 2005. If convicted, he could face up to 45 years in prison.
On Thursday, congressional Democrats demanded a briefing from the Justice Department about the 2008 agreement by Acosta’s office not to prosecute Epstein, which included a promise to Epstein’s defense team that federal prosecutors would not notify his victims of the arrangement, a practice that was not only unusual but against the law. The secrecy around the negotiations raised questions why Epstein — whom Trump recently described as a “fixture” in Palm Beach, where the president’s Mar-aLago club is — received such a lenient punishment.
The president repeated Friday that he cut ties with Epstein years ago after a falling out.