A couple of weeks ago, Sen. Markwayne Mullin sat down with CNN’s Jake Tapper and did his best to try to deflect blame in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. The effort went quite badly, however, for an important reason: The Oklahoma Republican couldn’t quite remember who was president in 2008.
As the far-right senator tried to argue, Epstein received “a sweetheart plea deal” from prosecutors in the Obama administration, an arrangement that Mullin claimed “has not been exposed.” It fell to Tapper to remind his confused guest that the late millionaire pedophile did benefit from a generous deal, but it was in 2008, that Barack Obama wasn’t president in 2008, and that the agreement was exposed years ago.
The incident did, however, serve as a timely reminder that it was Alex Acosta who helped orchestrate Epstein’s deal — and it was Donald Trump who added Acosta to his White House Cabinet during the Republican’s first term.
It’s against this backdrop that NBC News reported:
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Tuesday listed former attorneys general, a former FBI director, former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as people all subject to subpoenas for matters tied to Jeffrey Epstein. However, not named in the news release was Alex Acosta — who was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida whose secret non-prosecution agreement with Epstein created a spark that has turned into an inferno of controversy nearly 20 years later.
The report added that victims of Epstein’s sexual abuse are unhappy that Acosta was not among those subpoenaed.
An attorney for one of his victims said, “How can any genuine investigation into the federal government’s sweetheart deal with Epstein (including the extraordinary grant of blanket immunity to all his named and unnamed co-conspirators) omit Alex Acosta?”
Given the circumstances, that’s hardly an unreasonable question.
As longtime readers might recall, Epstein ended up pleading guilty to a state charge of soliciting sex from a minor in 2008, which led to an 18-month sentence. He was released after 13 months — during which time he was permitted to leave the prison and go to work during much of the day — and he then went back to living the high life.
How in the world did Epstein get such a generous deal, given the number of his underage victims? Because the agreement was approved by the local, Bush-appointed U.S. attorney, Acosta, whose team went around the federal prosecutor investigating the case, the FBI and the victims. A federal judge later questioned the legality of the agreement. As for why Trump added Acosta to his White House Cabinet despite all of this, the president hasn’t yet elaborated on the decision. In the meantime, Acosta is denying comment, and the Republican-led House Oversight Committee, led by Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, hasn’t fully explained why Acosta wasn’t included in its big batch of subpoenas. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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