Tuesday’s Senate hearing featuring FBI Director Kash Patel didn’t shed a ton of light on the substance of the Jeffrey Epstein files. But it was hugely significant in another way: It signaled a new political effort by the Trump administration to ascribe blame.
And the target is none other than a former top Trump administration official – one whom Trump very notably once defended.
Testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patel seemed to make a point to fault Alexander Acosta, who was US attorney in Florida in the late 2000s and cut a nonprosecution agreement with Epstein. That deal came during the George W. Bush administration, years before Trump in his first term picked Acosta as labor secretary.
Patel twice brought Acosta up unprompted, including in his opening statement, during Tuesday’s hearing.
“I’m here to testify that the original sin in the Epstein case was the way it was initially brought by Mr. Acosta back in 2006,” Patel said at the start of the hearing.
He said Acosta’s limited searches of Epstein and the nonprosecution agreement hamstrung the federal government’s ability to hold Epstein accountable and share information.
“If I were the FBI director, then it wouldn’t have happened,” Patel added.
His effort to cast blame suggests Republicans could try and make Acosta a focal point at a time when the administration has faced heat for its handling of the Epstein case. Patel’s comments come just three days before Acosta is set to testify to the House Oversight Committee — an appearance that will now be watched more closely.
In his own testimony, Patel later returned to Acosta when asked whether Epstein trafficked girls to other men. Patel said Acosta had “limited the investigation and limited the search warrants, and limited the parameters of the investigation.”
Patel said that meant “the only thing we are able to speak to publicly, because he was given a nonprosecution agreement by Mr. Acosta,” was a period in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
CNN has reached out to Acosta though Newsmax, where he serves on its board, for comment but hasn’t received a response. Acosta in 2019 defended the deal as necessary to make sure Epstein served prison time and registered as a sex offender.
Patel’s move to blame Acosta is striking for a number of reasons.
The first is that it’s a rather sudden shift for the Trump administration.
Plenty of people of have criticized the nonprosecution agreement that Acosta cut with Epstein, particularly since 2019 when Epstein was charged with sex-trafficking minors. (He soon after died by suicide.) A 2018 Miami Herald report had labeled it the “deal of a lifetime” and recounted the ways in which it was extraordinary. The news of Epstein’s 2019 indictment led Acosta to resign from the Trump administration.
But Trump has never been among those criticizing Acosta. In fact, despite accepting his resignation in 2019, Trump strongly defended him.
“I feel very badly, actually, for Secretary Acosta,” Trump said at the time, repeatedly praising Acosta’s work as labor secretary.
He also pitched the criticism of the nonprosecution agreement as Monday morning quarterbacking.
“You know, you could always second-guess people, and you could say it should have been tougher,” Trump said at the time. “They do it with me all the time. I make a great deal with anybody, and then they say – like, the Democrats – ‘Oh, it could have been better.’”
Trump also said Acosta didn’t even need to resign.
“There’s no need at all, as far as I’m concerned,” he said.
Trump’s first-term Justice Department did ultimately criticize Acosta somewhat for the deal he cut with Epstein. That came in a 2020 report from its Office of Professional Responsibility that cited Acosta’s “poor judgment” but said he did not engage in “professional misconduct.”
But Patel’s comments appear to be the first time a high-profile member of the Trump administration has personally cast blame on Acosta.
And the sudden decision to blame him also casts a spotlight on the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee’s odd decision last month not to include Acosta on an initial list of 10 subpoenaed witnesses.
After Democrats cried foul, Chairman James Comer of Kentucky announced the committee would sit down with Acosta – which is set for Friday. It’ll be worth watching how much Republicans adopt Patel’s strategy of blaming him.
But such an effort would be complicated by the fact that not only is Acosta a former Trump Cabinet official, but the nonprosecution agreement didn’t seem to be an issue before.
Even when Trump picked Acosta for labor secretary in 2017, the “sweetheart deal” with Epstein was known and was an issue. The first Trump administration took no action in the eight months between the Miami Herald’s exhaustive November 2018 investigation on the deal and Epstein’s charges in July 2019.
Trump installed Acosta in a high-profile role. Now Patel is saying he was instrumental in allowing Epstein to escape justice for so long.
To the extent the administration and Trump’s allies adopt this strategy, it could open up a whole new set of problems.
Source: edition.cnn.com