for our viewers who may have missed this, and anyone who missed this reporting should go back and reread all of it. i reread it all yesterday. this is from some of your reporting in the fall about acosta who was the last federal prosecutor to look at epstein s crimes and to ultimately enter into a non-prosecution agreement with him. you wrote this, akos thcosta wo explain he was unduly pressured by lawyers, jack goldberger, roy black, a former u.s. attorney, former white water special prosecutor, you basically detail that acosta s defense here is that he was out-lawyered, but how did epstein end up walking away with no jail time and an arrangement that left the victims in the dark. well, they did a pretty masterful job of keeping this whole scandal under wraps.
reporter if the miami herald who has done ground breaking work on this story, work that happened to be credited today by the prosecutors in new york wrote this last fall, quote, acosta allowed epstein s lawyers unusual freedoms in dictating the terms of the non-profession agreement. the report adds, epstein and four of his accomplices named in the agreement received immunity from all federal criminal charges. but even more unusual, the deal included wording that granted immunity to any potential coconspirators who were also involved in epstein s crimes. as part of the agreement, acosta agreed, despite a federal law to the contrary that the deal would be kept from the victims. that reporting from julie kay brown kicked off a fire storm of controversy around trump s labor secretary. but when trump was asked about acosta in february, he played dumb. mr. president, do you have any concerns about the labor
question of why that first sweetheart deal was allowed to happen, we don t know the answer yet. i think frank absolutely could be right. part of the reason at least that the public corruption unit in particular is involved in this case is that they are going to do a full probe of how those negotiations took place. was it sort of negligent, you know, sort of old school old boys network. that s the most benign explanation, i think, or was it something more calculated, more nefarious that could rise to the level of criminal corruption services. if there was some type of bribe offered to acosta, that could be a criminal charge. if he was offered, you know, obviously something tangible or intangible like the future promise of a cabinet position, i would like to know, sort of how this came about. is it just a coincidence that he
got. it was a slap on the wrist, a sweetheart deal, and i think we need to find out, what we need answers about is was it the result of something, you know, where acosta, his relationship with these defense lawyers, it was sort of an old boy s club. it was just a little too cozy or was it much more nefarious than that. was there actual corruption. there s no question it was wrong. there s no question it was unethical. there s no question it wasn t justice served and that is what made me so proud today was to see jeff berman and the assistant director of the fbi talking about justice for these victims. anyone that watched that press conference, really understood and believed that that is what they are seeking and that is what the prosecutors and the agents in this case are now seeking that has been denied for too long, and that s the way it should be. so the answer, though, to the
today it s hard to get an answer out of the white house since there are no longer white house briefings and the white house has deferred questions about this today. i think this is something they will have to address because this is his labor secretary, and jeremy is exactly right, the labor secretary is the person in charge of investigating the same and protecting against the same sorts of crimes we are seeing now. we are talking about this is not a victimless crime. this is a horrible crime of trafficking of children, and the fact that this is connected to this white house, i think in any other administration the secretary acosta would no longer have a job already but they will have the very difficult task of defending him now. julie, immaterial to end where i started i want to end where i started. i wonder if you can pull this thread through your body of reporting, what you uncovered, what the victims have been through, what they were denied and what your understanding is of how