Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta resigned amid the controversy surrounding his handling, as an assistant U.S. Attorney, of the 2008 prosecution of billionaire Jeffrey Epstein for sex crimes.
President Trump told reporters Acosta called him Friday morning to give him the news, and that it was Acosta’s decision. Acosta said that his resignation was effective one week from Friday. Deputy Patrick Pizzella will become acting secretary, the president said.
Trump also had praise for Acosta, calling him “a great labor secretary, not a good one” and saying that he thinks Acosta had explained his thinking in agreeing to the plea deal. He said Acosta is a “tremendous talent” and noted he “went to Harvard.”
Trump said Acosta felt it would be a distraction to stay on, but that he could have lived with him remaining in place. “There are so many good things that he didn’t want to distract from,” Trump said.
“I’ve already talked about the Epstein matter,” Acosta said, declining to address questions about the case. “My point here today is we have an amazing economy,” the outgoing secretary said, adding he didn’t want to attract unrelated headlines.
Democrats have argued that Acosta went easy on Epstein, a politically connected donor who was indicted on sex-trafficking charges on July 8.
Acosta, 50, a Florida native and child of Cuban immigrants, has defended his management of Epstein’s plea deal, arguing he got a tougher sentence for Epstein than what the government had initially sought a decade ago. The plea deal resulted in Epstein’s conviction on two counts of prostitution and 13 months in county jail. Epstein had previously faced a 53-page federal indictment.
Acosta applauded the July 8 indictments of Epstein, suggesting that they were based on information that wasn’t available to him a decade ago.
“With the evidence available more than a decade ago, federal prosecutors insisted that Epstein go to jail, register as a sex offender and put the world on notice that he was a sexual predator,” he tweeted earlier this week. “Now that new evidence and additional testimony is available, the NY prosecution offers an important opportunity to more fully bring him to justice.”
Acosta defended his actions at length in a press conference Wednesday, saying he cut he deal to spare some of Epstein’s victims from having to testify. “Some of the victims didn’t want any public notoriety,” he said.
Victims in the case have said Acosta cut the deal without consulting with them first. The Justice Department announced in February that it would investigate whether the plea deal violated the Crime Victim’s Rights Act, which requires victims be notified. The same month, a federal judge ruled that Acosta’s plea deal violated the act.
Congressional Democrats repeatedly grilled him about Epstein’s plea deal during appearances on Capitol Hill.
Trump was supportive of Acosta previously, saying on July 9 that he “felt sorry” for the labor secretary and criticism he was getting.
Acosta joined the Trump administration in 2017. He was Trump’s second choice after his first nominee for labor secretary, fast food businessman Andy Puzder, withdrew following controversy that he had been emotionally abusive towards his ex-wife during their divorce.
Prior to joining the administration, Acosta was dean of Florida International University Law School. During George W. Bush’s administration, he served as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida from 2005 to 2009, as assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights division from 2005 to 2003 and as a member of the National Labor Relations Board, the main federal labor law enforcement agency, from 2002-2003.
One of Acosta’s most consequential actions as labor secretary was to rewrite federal overtime rules to limit the number of workers covered. Acosta argued that the Obama administration had set the salary threshold for exempting workers from
overtime eligibility, at $47,000 annually, too high. The department has proposed $35,000 instead. The final version of the rule is pending.
Acosta also presided over the administration’s efforts to boost skilled trade apprenticeship programs as an alternative to higher education. He argued they were a better path for many high school graduates because the jobs could be high-paying and avoid school debt problem that plagues many in their twenties.
“I was talking to a CEO the other day who said that his company was hiring welders at an opening salary of $60,000. I thought, ‘Shouldn’t kids know about this?'” Acosta told the Washington Examiner in 2017.
The labor secretary was advocate for hiring convicted felons, arguing that this made communities safer because it prevented recidivism. “The best thing you can do for your community and the safety of your community is give those individuals a job and a stake in the community,” Acosta told the National Association of Counties earlier this year.
The Epstein cause has been a regular source of controversy for Acosta during his time in the Trump administration. During his Senate confirmation, Acosta defended his actions: “At the end of the day, based on the evidence, professionals within a prosecutor’s office decided that a plea that guarantees someone goes to jail, that guarantees he register generally [as a sexual predator] and guarantees other outcomes, is a good thing.”
The case drew attention again after it was the subject of a long investigative piece published last year by the Miami Herald. Many of Epstein’s victims expressed anger over how it was resolved, especially that the details of the plea deal were initially kept secret. The article portrayed Acosta as bowing to pressure from Epstein’s lawyers to limit the prosecution. Epstein was a key federal witness at about the same time in a case against a pair of Bear Stearns executives who were being charged with securities fraud.
