Lawmakers and legal analysts were taken aback as former Labor Secretary Alex Acosta stumbled facing a withering congressional spotlight as he defended a 2008 plea deal that allowed convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to serve minimal jail time.
Acosta spoke to the House Oversight and Reform Committee, where he defended his “sweetheart plea deal” he offered to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Legal analyst Lisa Rubin pinpointed a specific exchange he had with Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), who hammered him about why he considered Epstein’s victims unreliable.
Speaking to MSNBC on Monday, legal analyst Lisa Rubin and host Nicolle Wallace both took issue with Acosta’s claim that “there were evidentiary issues” and problems with the witnesses in the Florida Epstein case, and that he couldn’t win a prosecution.
Wallace described it as “the final slander of these women.”
“The witnesses are victims of sexual assault from some of the most powerful men the planet has ever known,” she noted.
"Crockett, for example, who really wanted to drill down on, I’m sorry, what exactly were the credibility problems with these women? Why did you not find them credible? Why did you think you couldn’t rehabilitate them in front of a jury?
He sort of sputtered, and he also insisted at one point during the transcript that it wasn’t a sweetheart deal after all. And his reasoning for saying that is because on his recommendation, the original non-prosecution agreement would have had Jeffrey Epstein do two years in jail, which he said was the sentence Jeffrey Epstein would have received had the state not been so crooked," Rubin said.
That ignores that a prosecutor under his supervision had written an 80-page memo saying that they could easily bring 50 to 60 counts against Epstein rather than a single state charge.
In some ways, what’s even more infuriating to me, is not just the fact that Epstein got immunity, or that four co-conspirators got immunity, immunity was also granted to any potential co-conspirators!
Wtf?! So essentially, immunity for any of these rich fucks that sexually abused people, but hadn’t been caught yet as of 2008. And now, almost 20 years later, we’re learning that his trafficking ring was just kind of an open secret among the world’s elite. Like a members only pool you could just dip your toes into anytime if you got curious.
One that could target and snatch an innocent kid from the working class because she caught the wrong person’s eye. And somehow since she and all the other victims weren’t from the elite class, their lives were seen as less than. Using them as objects, destroying their lives while profiting from the trauma they put them through, only to discard them like trash when they were done and slander their reputations when they tried to keep it from happening to others.
Since we’re already ignoring the rule of law to helicopter federal agents down to apartments in Chicago and break into people’s homes, and arresting every American citizen that commits a minor infraction in Memphis, why won’t Trump send a crime task force to take some of these too big to fail co-conspirators off the streets? If they got away with something like that for 20 years, why the fuck would anyone believe they aren’t still doing it?
I swear, someone needs to make another adaptation of 120 Days of Sodom set in this era, just so we never forget how fucked up things are when the elite are this powerful.
The much-criticized deal includes a controversial nonprosecution agreement, or NPA, in which the federal prosecutor’s office grants immunity to Epstein, four co-conspirators, and “any potential co-conspirators,” the Justice Department says. Prosecutors agree not to tell Epstein’s victims about the NPA, which is filed under seal.
How is this even legal…
Dont forget that just a few years after this, he was given a cushy cabinet position in tne first Trump administration.
Some people are just above the law I guess
To me it just makes it seem like further proof that it was never just Epstein being protected by his friends. It was always if Epstein talked too many powerful people would go down with him.
When his case got so much public attention during Trump’s first term he had to be killed. They probably would have just given him another deal, but too many people would have noticed.
I kind of vaguely remember Trump being kind of shell shocked after he was killed. Trump was one of the people protected by killing him, but he definitely wasn’t the only one. The bank records (in particular the ones JP Morgan won’t release) seem like the most damning evidence that remains without Epstein’s own testimony
Epstein died in 2019 during Trump’s first term.
Sorry meant to type first, fixed it
Because it’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.
Why isn’t Trump going after these people? Because the first door the feds would have to kick in is his own, obviously.
Did anyone ask him about his famous quote: “I was told Epstein belonged to intelligence.” ? To me that’s the crux of this story.
