Alex Acosta And His Epstein Interview With OIG Inspectors (Part 17)

0:00What's up everyone and welcome to another episode of the Epstein Chronicles. In this episode we're going to dive right back in to the Alex Acosta interview with the OIG inspectors. Question, okay, as you said about addressing 22.55, you consulted with redacted. Do you recall that? Answer, I recall consultations. I don't recall that it was specifically with redacted. But, question, did you know her? Answer, yes. Question, okay, and you recall the nature of your interaction with her? Answer, I don't. I know from contemporary review of the record that there is an email from her. Question, it's 41A. Answer, 41A. Question, and what I want to ask you is simply 41A is an email in which you ask, you note to redacted, who was redacted, one of her deputies, and she oversaw C-E-O-S. She redacted mentioned to you that redacted was looking at this, which is the 22.55. She contacts her counterpart in the civil division, redacted,

1:04and there's an email from him, which is the second page of this exhibit, which he copies you on. So my question is, is this the extent of your interaction with redacted on this issue? Answer, I, um, 12 years, um, after the fact, I don't remember. Question, okay, all right, the exhibit 35, there is a letter from J. Lefkowitz, in which I'm sorry, it's an email from J. Lefkowitz. Answer, exhibit, question, exhibit 35 to you, and this is substantially later, but it has a sentence that or a phrase that we'd like to ask you about, and all right, it's highlighted at the top. It says back in the beginning, back at the beginning of January, when you both agree that there was significant irregularities with a deferred prosecution agreement, you called the timeout. Is that accurate? Do you and he agree that answer no? Question, there was significant irregularities? Answer no. Question, okay, answer, and if I could, there are several instances

2:07where not just to me, but to other people as well, J recharacterizes conversations. Question, recharacterizes them, inaccurately, answer, inaccurately, question, or misleadingly. Answer, or misleadingly, question, all right. Answer, what I recall agreeing to at some point, is there was an appeal to the DAG, or there was an appeal in place, and I basically said, I think there was a letter that I sent saying if you want to appeal, go ahead, we're not concerned about this. But that doesn't mean that I agree that there were irregularities, or that there was a timeout. I'm part of that department. I'm part of a hierarchy. If someone wants to overrule me, that's okay by me. Question, all right, so the NPA Addendum was worked out, and the defense team continued its sort of multi-pronged assault. In the middle of the negotiation between redacted and left quits about the NPA Addendum, that's when you had the much commented on breakfast on October 12th, and have stated publicly that at perfectly accurately that the NPA was signed,

3:12and that was a done deal. And so this was not tied in any way to any effort to influence the terms of the NPA fair. Answer, fair, because the way this was reported was that I negotiated it over breakfast. It was signed, that's really important. Question, of course, there were, however, a number of open issues, right? And in Exhibit 28, Jay left quits on page two, this is an email to you, acknowledges your breakfast on Friday. This is dated October 18th, and following up your conversation with them about a date for Epstein's plea. So he notes that you said you didn't want to dictate a schedule to the state. So all I want to note is that when you had the breakfast, there was there were issues to open that were the subject of discussion between the defense and the US attorney's office. And so I guess my question is, while that was a meeting of convenience in a public place in a location where you had a business later that day, a speech I believe, optically, do you understand the public concern that this

4:15was sort of a one-on-one negotiation on pending issues? Answer, I understand how there can be concern. This, you know, it was not unusual in this case. I actually very intentionally waited and tried not to have one-on-one meetings, but there are other instances where I might from time to time have one-on-one conversations with the opposing counsel. I don't remember the breakfast. I can speculate that one of the issues was informing this was somewhere around this time, and I can't say with certainty that this was what it was. But somewhere around this time, there were those allegations that redacted had directed the designation to a boyfriend's partner or something along those lines. Question, I believe it was a former law school classmate of her former of her then boyfriend. Answer, yeah, so I don't know the details, or what they were, but I do know that there was a topic that they wanted to raise. With me, question, did he at the breakfast? Answer, honestly, I don't recall the breakfast. Question, okay? Answer,

5:17you asked me about one characterization of what I said in the record, you know, of the breakfast, I think I responded, or my counsel responded that they were pointing out that I seem fairly perturbed at how inaccurately characterized something that I said. And so we don't need to revisit that, but he gets cut off. All right, if you look at Exhibit 27, another sort of point, just a kind of, they get cut off with questions about breakfast and they decide to keep going. Question, and that's Exhibit 27. It's the second email down, is from redacted to J. left quits. The date is October 12, so that's the same day as your breakfast. Answer, right. Question, and the date of it is not, I'm sorry, the time is 948. Your breakfast was at 7. So this would have been pretty shortly after your breakfast, and redacted rights to J. left quits with a copy to you and redacted, stating that he just got off the phone with you. That is redacted, just got off the phone with you, and then he furnishes a revised paragraph one, which suggests,

6:22I mean, I infer from that shortly after the breakfast. You had a phone conversation with redacted about a revision to this paragraph, and that was likely something that you talked to him about, again, I'm not suggesting that this, they get cut off by Acosta, again, I don't recall the breakfast, so I can't say one way or the other. I take your point, but I don't recall seeing this. Question, all right, well, it was, you are copied on it. Okay, all right. You wanted, I just wanted to point out Exhibit 30. Answer, can we back up a second? I'm not sure whether your concerns are, so I would, I would only raise the question where, or the point where, based on this, and I don't recall, so I can't speak, but redacted is saying, Jay suggests revision has been rejected. Here is our latest redacted. And so too, there are multiple ways to read this. One is that this was raised. Another is that we're rejecting something that Jay had proposed. And because I was at the meeting

7:24with Jay, I asked that redacted, not rejected until after I met with him. I'm speculating because I don't recall the topic, but it does appear that it says Jay suggested revision has been rejected. Here is our latest redacted. All right, thank you. Question, can we just go to exhibit 30 quickly? There are some highlighted language. This is a letter from left quits to you on October 23rd, 2007, where he recounts again the things that happened or his version of the October 12 breakfast meeting. Question, are you at that point right there exhibit 30? Answer, yeah, I'm there. Question, okay, so in the highlighted language, if you could just take a look at that quickly, answer, yes, question. So he's recounting that you had assured him that the office would not intervene with the state attorney's office and or contact the civil claimants or intervene regarding the sentence that Epstein receives, pursuant to a plea agreement. Answer, yeah, question. So is he correct and is recounting that answer? Can you find that for me? Question,

8:27yeah, answer. So again, I don't have an independent recollection. I'm looking for something, I don't have an independent recollection of that breakfast, but in the contemporaneous emails and the contemporaneous record, there is correspondence between redacted and I and you all ask for this and I spoke with my counsel who then responded. And there's an email exchange where there is an October 20th, this wasn't October 23rd email, October 23rd letter. And then there's a response that's drafted on October 25th. I don't know if we can find that from redacted to J that specifically addresses the point. And then I respond redacted, runs that by me and I respond, I edit the letter and I move it sort of emphasize like I make it firmer. And my edit says our office cannot and will not agree to this. And then my comment to redacted is, what do you think of this rewrite? Is it too strong? Question, what day was that answer? That was two days after this. I don't know

9:27if we can find that in the chronological record. That was October 25th. Let's just take a minute, is that what you have? Redacted, sorry, apparently my ability to separate paper is failed. Okay, sorry, go ahead. Acosta, so October 25th, I'm writing to redacted, what do you think of this rewrite? Is it too strong? And it says Dear J, I'd like to take this opportunity to document our conversation of October 24th, which clarified some of the representations in your October 23rd letter. I write in particular because you indicated that your intent and writing the letter was to memorialize our conversations. Our agreement is limited to blank blank blank dot dot dot. I specifically want to clarify one of the items that I believe was inaccurate in the October 23rd letter. Your office claims that this office would not intervene with the state attorney's office regarding this matter or contact any of the individual's potential witnesses or potential

10:27civil claimants and their respective counsel in the matter. And neither your office nor the FBI would intervene regarding the sentence Mr. Epstein received. I'm quoting Jay's letter. As we discussed and hopefully clarified and as the US attorney previously explained in an earlier conference call, such promises equate to the imposition of a gag order. Our office cannot and will not agree to this. It is the intent of this office to treat this matter like any other case. Thus, as is typical, we do not desire or intend to intervene in the state attorney's office, the non prosecution agreement provides sufficient mechanisms to achieve the goals of the federal investigation. You should understand, however, that there are some communication that are typical in these matters. And so I go on and so my point is this was pretty based on if you're reviewed my emails and my language for me to write something up saying, what do you think of this rewrite? Is it too strong? And to my edit, redacted language to our office cannot and will not agree to this.

11:31Is not my agreeing with this characterization, but my polite way of saying this ain't what I said. Let me be clear. Again, no independent recollection. This is just based on inferring from the contemporaneous emails. Question? Okay. Alright folks, we're going to wrap up right here and in the next episode dealing with the topic, we're going to pick up where we left off. All of the information that goes with this episode can be found in the description box.