Alex Acosta And His Epstein Interview With OIG Inspectors (Part 22)

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1:00What'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 her 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 AUSA's were accused of misconduct, and I have always sort of felt that was, I don't want to say below the belt, but that's not what they take pay cuts, that they take to go into federal service, and you 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, he used the term Relentless

2:02to 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 thread 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.

3:04I think this really was a raised earth type of matter, and in the office typical interactions, the prosecutors know they have to come back to the office, and so they would not, sorry, not the prosecutors, it's getting late, the defense counsel, 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 were 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 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 pack of dillos. 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. Mr. Redacted, are you talking about the to whom it may concern letter?

4:08Mr. Redacted, yes. Acosta, yeah. Question, thank you. And it's in reference on the second number page of this copy to personal pack of dillos in the middle of the page. Answer, also individual prosecutors and their families looking for personal pack of dillos that provide a, so redacted, was my recollection, she wasn't investigated. Redacted and I, have it encountered that in other cases. I recall at one point they looked in, redacted, and redacted family and his background, and I thought that was a little bit out of line. Now, the next like, I don't know, 17 or 18 lines are all redacted. At that point, I was trying to convey is that this is not a typical behavior by the defense council. And despite all of this, my point was, despite all of this, we did not budge. Question 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 defense council came to you

5:11that 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 2011. But that's for simplicity of grouping 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,

6:12but that would have been it. Question, and did you consult with him? 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 deanship 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 hire is 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,

7:14and it's 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 adapt it, 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 the 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 Star, 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

8:16on my resolution of this matter. Question, but it also appeared to be tension that both of you were eager to leave aside. 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.

9:35There is a sort of investigative journalist, author, name, or dacted. Answer, yes. Question, do you know what, don't know that name? Answer, yes. Question, did you ever speak with her? Answer, so she was the recipient of the, to whom it made 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 come back to you on it? Answer, yes. Answer, yes. Answer, yes. Answer, yes. Answer, yes. Answer, yes. Answer, yes. Answer, it was 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 awhile ago. Question. And she says in that book that you told her a few years after the MPA 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,

10:37provide 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, Apologia. 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, and 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 prosecutor is an agent 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. Mr. Epstein hired an army of legal superstars,

11:40Harvard professor, Dershowitz, former judge, and then Pepperdine, lodging Ken Star, former deputy assistant to the president, then Kirkland and Ellis Law partner, J. Lefkowitz, and several others, including prosecutors that formally worked in the U.S. 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, and 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 Mr. Black in the original meeting. Question, so what I understand you saying is that the panopoli, 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.

12:41So how can you say that there is 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 individuals 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 Ms. Redacted, 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

13:42because I did not want to play favorites. And so I provided to whom it made 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.