Left: Jeffrey Epstein in an undated photograph released by the Justice Department. (DOJ)
Right: May 13, 2026; Arlington, Texas, USA; Former president George W. Bush watches the game between the Texas Rangers and the Arizona Diamondbacks at Globe Life Field. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images
The Bush administration’s Justice Department (DOJ) may have played a key role in the unprecedented and “secret” plea deal offered to Jeffrey Epstein in 2007, according to an explosive report from the Miami Herald.
The Herald’s Julie K. Brown, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose reporting helped lead to Epstein’s arrest in 2019, spoke with former Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter over the course of several months, and on Saturday, had a profile on the veteran law enforcement official published in the Herald that included previously unreported details.
Reiter had initiated the first criminal probe into Epstein’s illegal conduct in the mid-2000s, later working in tandem with federal law enforcement.
However, after gathering evidence and “interviewing two dozen tearful girls and their parents” over the course of 11 months, he was then “stonewalled by state prosecutors and attacked in the media,” and later, “ostracized by federal prosecutors, who took over the case in early 2007,” the Herald’s report reads.
As parents of alleged Epstein victims grew “frustrated” with Reiter, the Palm Beach Police chief “took the unusual step” of requesting a meeting with Alexander Acosta, the Herald reported, who at the time served as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and would later go on to be tapped by President Donald Trump as his Labor secretary.
“I’m here to ask you to live up to the principles that you espoused when you were sworn in,” Reiter told Acosta, he recalled to Brown.
“Who has the authority to make the decision of whether or not to federally prosecute Epstein? We turned it over to you. We did most of the work, and the assistant U.S. attorney told us she usually gets 10 years for each count, and we had maybe 100 counts and probably 24 or so cooperating victims. So whose authority is it?”
Acosta, according to Reiter’s account, “didn’t respond.” Reiter then told Acosta that he suspected Epstein’s legal team was “manipulating” Acosta’s office, the Herald’s report reads, telling Brown in hindsight that he “basically told him to do his job.”
Acosta’s supposed response was telling.
“We have been receiving some guidance from main justice and [Epstein’s] defense attorneys have done a very effective job in stalling the case,” Acosta said, according to Reiter.
Main justice, as Acosta allegedly referred to, is the common shorthand for the DOJ headquarters in Washington, D.C. As such, Acosta’s claim was a clear admittance that “guidance” had been issued by the Bush administration’s DOJ as it relates to the probe into Epstein.
That alleged guidance ultimately produced a plea deal in which Epstein pleaded guilty to a single count of soliciting prostitution – despite the FBI having identified at least 40 potential minor victims. The deal also granted broad immunity to Epstein and any potential co-conspirators and allowed him to leave prison on work release for up to 12 hours a day, during which he allegedly sexually abused other victims.
Acosta's supposed remarks were also consistent with statements he made during his vetting to become Labor secretary, when he reportedly claimed he was told that Epstein "belonged to intelligence," that the matter was "above his pay grade," and that he should "leave it alone," The Daily Beast previously reported.