'He should be on that list!' Prosecutor demands ex-Trump official's testimony on Epstein
The House Oversight Committee issued a number of subpoenas this week to high-profile figures for information on Jeffrey Epstein, though one notable omission is leaving legal experts baffled.
“This is really anything but a pursuit of honesty, the truth, evidence and facts,” said attorney and former New York prosecutor Jeremy Saland, speaking on CNN Friday regarding the Trump administration’s ongoing investigation surrounding Epstein, who died in 2019 awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges, and is alleged to have maintained a ‘client list’ of powerful figures for blackmail purposes.
Notable figures issued subpoenas regarding Epstein include former President Bill Clinton, former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and former FBI Director James Comey, among others. Missing from that list, however, was Alexander Acosta, Trump’s pick for Labor secretary in his first term.
Epstein was under criminal investigation in the mid-2000s for potential sex trafficking, with the FBI having identified at least 40 potential minor victims. The FBI’s investigation was shut down, however, after Alexander Acosta, who then was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, granted Epstein a generous plea agreement.
Epstein ultimately pled guilty to one count of prostitution in accordance with the plea deal agreed to by Acosta, and sentenced to 18 months in prison, where he was allowed to leave prison for up to 12 hours a day, six days a week in what critics have called a “completely unprecedented” arrangement.
Roughly a decade later, when Acosta was being vetted by the Trump administration ahead of his appointment to lead the Department of Labor as its secretary, he was asked about the lenient deal. According to an inside source and reported by the Daily Beast, Acosta said that he had received a call from someone who told him to, regarding Epstein, “leave it alone” as he “belonged to intelligence,” and that the matter was “above his paygrade.”
The family of Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide earlier this year and is among the most outspoken victims of Epstein, called for Acosta to be included in any subpoenas, with her brother, Sky Roberts, telling CNN Thursday that Giuffre was “incredibly hurt by the sweetheart deal.”
The next day on Friday, Saland, the attorney and former New York prosecutor, said he agreed with Roberts wholeheartedly.
“You want to subpoena people?” Saland said. “He should be on that list, there's no reason really why he shouldn't be. Anyone that has in-depth and first-hand knowledge should be a part of this. This is politics, politics, politics. This is just cinema made for TV so it can seem like there's a pursuit of justice.”