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.