Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta on Wednesday defended his role in the 2008 prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein, insisting that his office was actually “too aggressive,” despite giving the billionaire sex offender a secret plea deal.
“This matter was appealed all the way up to the deputy attorney general’s office. And not because we weren’t doing enough, but because the contention was that we were too aggressive,” Acosta responded to Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL), who called his actions “odious” at a House Education and Labor Committee hearing.
The non-prosecution deal between Acosta— then the top federal prosecutor in Miami—and the 66-year-old Epstein, a prominent financier accused of paying dozens of girls for sex and intimate massages, allowed the politically connected hedge-fund manager to plead guilty to two minor state charges and avoid any serious prison time.
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