Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta to resign over plea deal with Jeffrey Epstein.

Alexander Acosta's Labor Secretary photo via Wikipedia.

Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta resigned today over a plea deal with billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein 12 years ago. New York Times. Though he apparently still had to support of President Donald Trump, Acosta resigned as he felt the scandal was distracting from his job. Acosta was in charge of the investigation into Epstein who has been accused of human trafficking of underage girls and rape. Under the deal, Epstein was convicted of a felony and had to register as a sex offender but was given very good conditions in jail, including being allowed to work outside the jail for much of his sentence. Acosta insisted that the conviction was the best they could do under the circumstances. 

....Alex was a great Secretary of Labor and his service is truly appreciated. He will be replaced on an acting basis by Pat Pizzella, the current Deputy Secretary.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2019

My Comment:
Alex Acosta was in a no win situation, both back when the Epstein case was resolved and today. He almost certainly thought that forcing Epstein to face any time at all was a major victory given the man's billions of dollars and huge connections to the elite. It is also rumored that he was told to back off by his superiors because Epstein was an intelligence asset. Who Epstein belonged to is an open question, but it is also suspected that Epstein was a government witness in several white collar crime cases.

The truth of the matter is that Epstein may very well have won at trial. He had a very competent legal team led by Alan Dershowitz who was going to do everything they could to demean and discredit Epstein's victims. They would have had credibility issues and there is no way to know if a jury would have been convinced. And the potential for jury tampering was probably pretty severe.

And Acosta wasn't responsible for everything bad that happened with the Epstein case. The sweetheart-deal where he was allowed to work outside the prison six days a week wasn't Acosta's fault, that was on the prison administration. Plus there have been multiple reports that said that many state governments dropped the ball with Epstein.

Should Acosta have resigned? I am not sure. It was very true that this story was becoming a distraction for the government. And even though the Epstein case may have not had the perfect outcome, when it comes to sex offenders that target children, perfect is what is needed. I personally think that Acosta should have stuck it out but on the other hand, his reasons for doing so make sense. And even though imperfect justice is better than no justice, I have to admit to being very outraged by the outcome of the original Epstein case as well. Epstein should, at the very least, have been forced to name names as condition to any plea agreement.

I am angry at the media though. Their reaction to the Epstein story has been horrible. Instead of investigating the large number of people that partied with Epstein and flew on his jet to his private island, including Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, Alan Dershowitz, and many other influential and famous people, they have gone after Alexander Acosta instead. He was the one person that did anything to at least make people aware of the issue and got some kind of justice for the victims, however imperfect and inadequate it may be. Why go after him instead of the people that may have molested trafficked teenagers? 

Of course the media only cares about the Epstein story as a bludgeon to hit Trump with. Initially they attacked Trump himself because of his tenuous connections to Epstein despite the fact that Trump never went to Epstein's private island and also reportedly kicked Epstein out of his Mar-A-Lago club after Epstein harassed or assaulted one of the daughters of a member. When that tactic failed, they went after Acosta instead and managed to get his scalp.

As for Epstein himself, he seems to be totally screwed. Unless he can find a hell of attorney or goes and bribes witnesses and jurors, he is going away for a long time. Even if he tries to make a deal he won't get it because the government already appears to have his blackmail files that were his trump card. The truth about Epstein and his activities will likely come out and when it does it will bring down a lot of very powerful people with him.

I'm still convinced that Epstein's real goal wasn't just being a pedophile pimp to the elite, he was a blackmail operation. And he probably had help from state actors, domestic or otherwise. He appeared to have taped the people that he partied with as they had sex with minors and likely used those tapes as leverage over them to get them to support whatever his handlers wanted him to support. Keep that in mind and all the media outrage over Acosta makes sense. Anything to distract that many elite players could have been compromised by a government, either ours or a foreign one because they were too perverted to not have sex with underage girls. If that ends up being the truth then it's going to be the biggest political scandal in American history...