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