Latest / The Vault: The Epstein Files / Mega Edition: Alex Acosta And His Epstein Interview With OIG Inspectors (Part 22-23) (6/23/26)

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Mega Edition: Alex Acosta And His Epstein Interview With OIG Inspectors (Part 22-23) (6/23/26) · The Vault: The Epstein Files

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Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
0:02
Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're going to pick up
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where we left off with the alex Acosta interview with
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the OIG inspectors. Question, what do you think about the
0:12
media's treatment of line assistant redacted answer? I think I
0:17
wish your name wouldn't be in the media. You know,
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to some extent, US attorneys when they take the job,
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realize that part of their job is to take the
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slings and arrows, and you know, there are instances when
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ausas were accused of misconduct and I have always sort
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of felt that was I don't want to stay below
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the belt, but that's not what they take. Pay cuts
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that they take to go into federal service, and you know, know,
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I think the media coverage of this case has been
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unfair and has lost a lot of the complexities. It's
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not surprising because I mean, here we're talking about a
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lot of those complexities, and it takes a fairly sophisticated discussion,
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but I think it's particularly unfair. Unredacted. Question. In your
0:58
attorney's written response, use the term relentless to characterize the
1:03
team of lawyers, the defense lawyers and in the Daily
1:06
Beast article that you wrote, you referred to the year
1:09
long assault on the prosecution and the prosecutors. You noted
1:13
that the defense was more aggressive than any of which
1:17
I or the prosecutors in my office had previously encountered.
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You noted that the defense investigated prosecutors and tried to
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disqualify too, and I believe that those two are redacted
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and redacted. Is that correct answer? That's correct question? And
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you also raised or noted or asserted that there were
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investigations into the family lives of individual prosecutors, accusations of
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bias and misconduct against individual prosecutors, and even the threat
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of a book on prosecutorial zeal. Do you still regard
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that characterization as accurate? Answer? I do you know whether
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I would use those same words. Now. We can spend
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a lot of time talking about it, and I'd want
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to think about it. But I do think that that's accurate.
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I think this really was a raised Earth type of matter.
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And in the office typical interactions, the prosecutor is no,
2:10
they have to come back to the office, and so
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they would not sorry, not the prosecutors. It's getting late,
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the defense council, and so they would not. It's not
2:19
just the accusations against the attorneys, but the mischaracterization. I
2:23
could go through the record and there are several instances
2:26
where my words or other USA words were being mischaracterized.
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Or we're going back to one of the redacted emails.
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People walk out of the meeting believing they have an agreement,
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and then that's unwound. That is not I don't know
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if that's the typical in Washington, but that's certainly not
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typical in the Miami office. Question all right, in the
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Daily Beast article, I think you also use the term pacadillos. Answer, yes,
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question what did you mean by that? In particular? Answer?
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Could I see? Could I question? I was afraid you'd ask.
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I'd have it right in front of me, and I
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don't at the moment, misredacted, Are you talking about to
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whom it may concern? Letter mister redacted, Yes, Acosta, Yeah, question,
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thank you, And it's in reference on the second number
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page of this copy to personal peccadillos in the middle
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of the page. Answer also individual prosecutors and their families
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looking for personal peccadillos that provide a so redacted was
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my recollection? She wasn't investigated redacted, and I haven't encountered
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that in other cases. I recall at one point they
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looked in redacted and redacted his family and his background,
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and I thought that was a little bit out of line.
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Now the next like, I don't know, seventeen or eighteen
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lines are all redacted. At that point I was trying
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to convey is that this is not a typical behavior
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by the defense counsel. And despite all of this, My
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point was, despite all of this, we did not budge.
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And again that's not the focus of the question. Like redacted.
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Once again, the whole answer question, all right, are there
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any other examples where a defense counsel came to you
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that you have not otherwise addressed with allegations about someone?
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Did they ever raise or imply that there were that
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there was information regarding you or whatever respect that was
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in the nature of a sort of a threat or
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a veiled warning. Answer. So the book reference was that
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I might be personally embarrassed by pursuing this matter because
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I would be subject of the chapter in a book
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on prosecutorial overreach. Answer, and who is going to write
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that book? Do you know? Answer? Professor Dershowitz. Question, Okay,
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did you consider him a professional friend at all? Answer?
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I had not, to my recollection, met him. I understand
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in this letter I sort of grouped him in, But
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I'd say for the record that it's hard to know
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what my intent was in twenty eleven. But that's for
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simplicity of grow individuals. Because I did go to Harvard.
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I may have run into him at Harvard, but he
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was not my professor. I didn't work for him as
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a teaching assistant. I had some interest in criminal law,
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so I may have chatted with him, but that would
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have been it. Question and did you consult with them
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at all in connection with your efforts, your interest and
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potentially teaching or being involved in the sort of law
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school world, either at Harvard or at Florida International or
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anywhere else. Answer not, to my recollection. At some point
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when I applied for the deanship, I wasn't aware of
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the dean ship until so let's take this. Let's take
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this in part. I thought about taking or looking at
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Harvard for a teaching position. To my recollection, I never
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followed through on that question. Uh huh. Answer. I knew
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Alina Kagan and may have had a conversation with her
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about what would have been preliminary how does this process work.
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But I don't recall talking if I took it that far,
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and I'm not saying that I did. This was a
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long time ago. I never sort of went through the
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way law schools hires very They call it a meat market.
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Take that for what it's worth. It's something that happens
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at the hotels here at the Marriott Hotel on Connecticut,
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and its very formalized process. I never went through that.
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I don't recall any conversation with Professor Dershowitz about that.
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To the extent I was thinking about it, it'd be
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natural for me to talk to or redacted, But I
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don't recall talking to him. With respect to a Professor Dershowitz.
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With respect to FIU, the dean process is very decentralized.
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To the extent a faculty members spoke to him, I
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don't know to my recollection. And again, this is a
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long time ago. I did not ask for a reference
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or a letter or something to that regard, although I
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may have, it was a very long time ago. I
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was also no longer active in this case at the time.
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Question all right, and what about with respect to that
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same process on your part, Ken Starr, who actually was
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a dean of the law school at the time, did
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he provide you with reference or advice? Answer not to
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my recollection question? All right, answer as the letter from
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Ken at the end, there was by that time this
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was over, there was some degree of tension between us
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on my resolution of this matter. Question, but it also
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appeared to be tension that both of you were eager
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to leave a side answer. I'm a big believer and
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I had good relationships with the defense team. I think
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lawyers can disagree and not be disagreeable, and we would
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be in a better profession if we all learned to
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do that. Question, so would the world. There is a
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sort of investigative journalist author name or dacted Answer yes question,
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do you know that name? Answer? Yes question. Did you
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ever speak with her? Answer? So she was the recipient
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of the to whom it may concern letter at the
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Daily Beast? Question? Oh really? Answer yes question? All right,
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all right, thank you. We didn't know that. Did she
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comment back to you on it? Answer? It was a
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long time ago. I don't recall. Question. So she wrote
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a book called Trafficking. Have you read that about this case.
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Answer she did, I haven't read it recently, but I
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read it a while ago. Question. And she says in
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that book that you told her a few years after
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the NPA was signed, as she writes, he felt incapable
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of going up against those eight powerful attorneys. He felt
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his career was at stake. Did you say that to her? Answer?
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Not to my recollection. What I tried to do was
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for the record, provide this letter to her. And the
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purpose of this letter was to say the exact opposite,
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which is, and you know, we have this, you know,
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and she had in this New York Times and I
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think the New York Times called it. What's the word like, apologia?
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Does anyone know? Yeah? Apologia apology. It's a fancy way
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of saying you're explaining yourself. Answer yeah, I looked it up,
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and it's a little more derogatory than explaining myself, because
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I felt the need to look it up. But the
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New York Times called this letter an apologia. Question mm hmm. Answer.
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And this was recently. And I say this because then
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folks read the letter, they read it as this is
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why you know, I think sometimes they selectively read language.
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The prosecutors and agents in the case, and what followed
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was a year long assault. I used the word assault
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as it was more aggressive than anything in which I
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or the prosecutors in my office had previously encountered. Mister
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Epstein hired an army of legal superstars, Harvard professor Dershowitz,
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former judge, and then Pepperdine Lodging ken Starr, former Deputy
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assistant to the President, then Kirklin and Ellis law partner
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Jay Lefkowitz, and several others, including prosecutors that formerly worked
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in the US Attorney's Office. The child Exploitation section, I'm
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not sure who that was of the Department of Defense.
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Question Department of Defense answer no, No, in Child Exploitation
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and Obscenity section of the Justice Department. Defense attorneys next
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requested a meeting with me, and they read that as
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saying there were all these powerful lawyers in the case.
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But they then go on to talk about it. Despite
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this army of attorneys, the office held firm to the
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terms first presented to mister Black in the original meeting. Question, So,
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what I understand you saying is that the panopoly, this
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pantheon of attorneys did not have the influence on you.
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That's alleged answer, and the purpose of this letter as
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to despite all of that, we held firm, So how
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can you say that there's influence if we held firm?
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And I would also I'm sorry, gets cut off, no,
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no continues. I would also note I think we talked
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about this, and those terms were developed before many of
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these individuals came on board. So it's not like these
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terms were developed because oh now these indi visuals are
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on board. Question all right, And of course we haven't
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talked about the work release issue, but I think that speaks.
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The record speaks for itself on that. So I'm not sure.
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I'm clear. Did you have an interview or give have
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a conversation with misredacted or just center this letter answer.
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I spoke with her briefly saying I'm not going to
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speak on the record. I'm not going to address even
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off the record details of the case, but I will
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provide a letter to you. I've had a lot of
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requests over the years to talk about the case. There
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were enough requests coming that I thought it was important
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to provide a statement to defend the actions of the office.
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I didn't want it to be one reporter in particular,
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because I did not want to play favorites, and so
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I provided to whom it may concern letter that was
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a public letter, but then I gave it to her.
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All Right, folks, we're gonna wrap up right here, and
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in the next episode dealing with the topic, we're gonna
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pick up where we left off. All of the information
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that goes with this episode can be found in the
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description box. What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode
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of the Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're diving right
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back in to the alex Acosta interview with the OIG investigators,
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and we're getting close to the end here. Question, and
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just one thing on work release issue. Did you tell
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the defense that the US Attorney's Office would not object
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if he got work release as long as he's treated
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like every other defendant. Answer. So, I don't recall what
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I may or may not have said specifically around work release.
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My recollection of our general position is you're pleading in
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state court to incarceration of eighteen Now it's eighteen months,
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it was twenty four. Whether it was eighteen or twenty four,
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this would have been any conversation I would have had
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would have been after the agreement was signed. It's our
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expectation that he be treated just like everyone else. If
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it was typical to provide that kind of work release
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in these cases, that would have been news to me.
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I certainly would not have expected that, and I think,
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based on our subsequent communication with the State Attorney's office,
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that was not what our office envisioned. By the same token,
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I don't want to think our office envisioned that he'd
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be treated worth that the typical offender. Question, Well, did
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you know that redacted was in fact trying to make
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sure that he didn't get work release? Answer? Yes, and
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so I don't see any reason why I would have
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contradicted that. That's my point. Question all right, you've mentioned
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a number of times that the sexual offender registration was
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one of the three important prongs for you and the office.
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Answer yes, question what was it that you saw the
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sex offender registration as accomplishing? Answer? So, to some extent,
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it's putting the community on notice that, irrespective of whether
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he's in Florida or elsewhere, he's a registered sex offender.
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To some extent, I don't know if this, but I'll
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say it anyhow, this was a serious crime, and there's
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a public sanction associate with this, and I thought, to
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the extent that he committed the types of acts that
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typically are associated with registration, that should go forward. But
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the primary motivation there was put the public on notice
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that he is a registered sex offender. Question and did
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you see any conflict with that as being the goal?
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With the provision in the NPA that the NPA was
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going to be kept confidential and the communication in which
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the US Attorney's Office was having with the defense about
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continuing to keep things confidential, do you see any inconsistency
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between those two? Answer? No, and that I genuinely was
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of the opinion that the NPA would go public, and
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certainly his public his state core plea would be public,
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and his registration would be public, and so what he
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did would be known. Question and given what you know
14:52
about these offices back and forth on notifying the victims,
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do you think, looking at the entire course of conduct
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of the office, that the victims were treated fairly and
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with dignity and respect. Answer? So, I want to be careful,
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not because I'm fudging, but because it's a complex question.
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If looking back in hindsight, we knew that there would
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be what was it, two eight month periods? Do we
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have an agreement? Do we not have an agreement? Is
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this concluded? Is this not concluded? Is this an ongoing investigation?
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How do we deal with all these notification issues? If
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we had foreseen all of that, I think I've said
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before that something I certainly think should have been considered,
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and it's very possible we would have done something very different,
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But that was not foreseen. And so it's then a
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very difficult judgment to be made because there is an agreement,
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there is concern as to if we go to trial,
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how do you address this? There is you know, going
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to the AFID David at least one instant, and I'm
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merging my recollection here and my knowledge after the fact,
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because your question sort of calls for an after the
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fact assessment. So you've got their redacted after David, which
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points out the defense Council did all they could, but
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is using this to impeach and weaken witness credibility in
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a case where there's already questions around witness credibility. And
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so it's a very imperfect situation with discretionary judgments to
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do the best to sort of balance all of these factors,
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is that the best outcome Probably not, But that's where
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we were, and that's why I think this case would
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have been very different than it was October twenty fourth.
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He would have gone in and pled and taken his
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time and served his time like many other people have done,
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as opposed to mount all these legal challenges that we
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then had to work through. Question, and I'll preface my
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question with the fact that we're still investigating this. We've
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made no conclusions with respect to this. But if OPR
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determines that your office should be criticized for its handling
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of this, does the criticism fall on you? Or does
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it fall on your senior managers because a non prospcut
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you were relying on them to keep you informed and
17:03
for their judgment. Answer. So, I was the US Attorney.
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I certainly relied on my staff, but ultimately I was
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the US Attorney, and I don't think it's justifiable or
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fair to sort of say this was on them. I
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was sufficiently aware of matters that it was my office.
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And while I'll say that it was, I might not
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recall this or I was relying on AB or C
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for guidance or to handle the matter. Ultimately, I think
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those judgments always sort of bubble up. Question in your
17:34
press conference, you reference I think July tenth, twenty nineteen
17:37
press conference, you reference victims. What they went through was horrific,
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you said, and then you said, I've seen the videos.
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I've seen the interviews. I have seen the interviews on
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television of the victims and their stories. Just to be clear,
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are you talking about interviews and television coverage and videos
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recently or back in two thousand and six? Answer recently?
18:01
Question Okay, I just wanted to be very clear about that.
18:04
The US Attorney Manual requires us all in the Department
18:08
to conduct the fair, even handed administration of the federal
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criminal law. What's your view as to how the handling
18:14
of this case comported with that principle? Answer? So, I
18:18
don't think it was fair and even handed. You know,
18:21
after the fact may look back and say that two
18:24
years may not. You know, it shouldn't have been a
18:27
manifest in justice standard. It should have been sort of denovo.
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Let's treat this like a new prosecution. That's a judgment
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you'll all make. But those judgments were made with the
18:38
eye towards fairness and impartiality, and once those judgments were made,
18:42
despite all the attorneys involved, and despite all the litigation
18:47
and all the stuff, all the appeals to DC, you know,
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we stuck to that position, and I think that speaks
18:53
to the way the office approached the matter. Question all right.
18:57
I spoke sort of offline earlier about an issue that
19:00
was raised in the press conference that was not clearly
19:02
answered on your part in that context, and the question
19:06
was is this? On page fifteen of the Internet transcript
19:10
of that press conference, you were asked whether you ever
19:13
made aware of mister Epstein as an intelligence asset of
19:16
some sort, and you, in your response said you could
19:20
answer it, couldn't address it directly because of guidelines. Can
19:23
you clarify, first of all, were you ever made aware
19:27
of that? Answer? If he was, I'm not aware of it. Question,
19:32
all right? Did defense counsel ever say to you that
19:34
Epstein had that status? Answer? Not to my recollection question,
19:39
all right? Answer, and to clarify, I also don't know
19:42
where the press reports from multiple sources, not from multiple sources,
19:46
but from multiple media outlets that I told someone that
19:49
he was an intelligence asset. I don't know where that
19:51
came from. So there are questions that I may be
19:55
asked publicly that I don't think it's right for me
19:58
to comment as to what classify information I may or
20:01
may not have, because that's not the kind of stuff
20:04
you'd get into. But the answer is no and no.
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Question all right without reservation. Answer no and no. All right, excellent,
20:14
Thank you. A couple of final questions. Answer can I
20:18
address is a second issue that has come up at times?
20:22
Question yes, answer. There are also media reports that this
20:26
was because of cooperation in some financial matters. I don't
20:29
know where that may have I don't know where that
20:31
may have come from. Answer all right, thank you, and
20:34
we are familiar with that what you're referring to. Answer
20:38
was there cooperation related to financial matters? Question? We didn't
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ask you about it? Answer okay. Question. As you can tell,
20:46
OPR obtained many electronic records, mainly emails, but other electronic
20:52
holdings from the Department. The Department of Justice, however, has
20:56
not been able to find or recover a portion of
20:59
your email account as US attorney that contained emails received
21:03
by you between May twenty six, two thousand and seven,
21:06
and March two thousand and eight. Answer correct. Question A
21:11
period of time rather relevant to this. We've obtained many records,
21:14
of course from senders and from other people copied, so
21:18
we have many of the records. But the fact is
21:21
there's a gap in the holdings. And this is despite
21:24
the fact that, as you no doubt no, the law
21:27
requires that US Attorney records be maintained and archived indefinitely.
21:32
Can you give us any insight, any idea how that
21:35
might be the case? Answer? I can't, And my recollection
21:40
was after several issues that took place in the department,
21:43
had some sort of records retention software that automatically retained
21:46
the emails. Is that not accurate? Question? There was there
21:51
was a switchover from a period in which the record
21:54
retention responsibility resided with each US Attorney office, and at
21:59
the switchover became centralized. Answer right, question, And this appears
22:04
to have sort of gotten lost in the he gets
22:08
cut off here by Acosta. Answer been caught in the switchover.
22:12
My recollection is that there was some automatic retention mechanism.
22:16
Question okay, answer, and I can't address that, although there's
22:19
certainly a fulsome record question. But just to ask the
22:23
inevitable question, did you take any action to discard destroy
22:28
or dispense with any official records related to this matter. Answer,
22:33
not to my recollection. I think there's a fullsome record,
22:36
and not to my recollection. Question all right, And is
22:40
there any particular gap that you've discerned in the records
22:43
that we've provided to you? Answer not that I recall.
22:47
Do you have the emails that I sent out of curiosity?
22:50
Answer we do? Answer, okay, so you have the scent
22:53
but not received question? Yes, answer just checking question. And likewise,
22:58
we retrieved from the Federal Record Center records that were
23:01
boxed up and sent there hard copy documents after your
23:05
term ended, and there is nothing that relates to the
23:08
Epstein case. There were records that were maintained that were
23:11
kept in the main office after you left because it
23:14
was an ongoing matter. But do you have any idea
23:17
why there are not any in those records of yours
23:20
that were sent? Answer? So I have a recollection that
23:23
when I left, there were some binders that I passed
23:26
along to redacted because it was an ongoing case, and
23:29
we sort of had binders out of that sort of
23:32
had correspondence back and forth. All right, and you've already
23:36
made We've already asked you about the facts, but you
23:39
addressed sort of a broader statement to us for the
23:42
record about the case. Is there anything else you want
23:44
to tell us at this point? Answer, give me a
23:47
second to think this through. Question In fact, if you'd
23:50
like to take a quick break and talk to your attorney,
23:54
and that will be the last question. Answer, do we
23:56
need a break? Mister redacted? No, misredacted? Our attorney says no, Acosta,
24:02
I'll follow up on this. Nothing that I if something
24:05
comes up. My understanding is that we're received the transcript
24:09
and have enough time, given the length of this to
24:11
review and comment. Question exactly yes, And for the record,
24:16
when the transcript is prepared, which should be within a
24:18
couple of weeks, will ship that off to you, and
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your attorney will ask you to review it, to make
24:25
not only any corrections but clarifications, and to add to it.
24:29
If you feel you have read something that it needs
24:31
to be clarified or expanded upon, you're invited to do so. Answer,
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And if I could ask one other question, I'm not
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familiar enough with the way OPR operates, and this may
24:43
be weird, so you may not be prepared to answer.
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If there's a report as opposed to a letter, which
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is what I typically am familiar with. Will that report
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be shared in advance for comment or is that determined misredacted.
24:57
I'm going to defer to misredacted for that misredacted. That's
25:01
a question that doesn't need to be on the record.
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Do you have anything else that you'd want to put
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on the record before we close out? Acosta? I do
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not misredacted? All right, thank you. I want to extend
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our great appreciation for your willingness to come in and
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help us with this case. All right, we're off the record,
25:20
all right, folks. So there you have it. The complete
25:23
and unabridged version of Alex Acosta's interview with the OIG Inspectors.
25:31
All of the information that goes with this episode can
25:33
be found in the description box.