Mega Edition: Alex Acosta And His Epstein Interview With OIG Inspectors (Part 22-23) (3/14/26)

0:00¿Quieres mejor internet? Cox Internet de 300 Megas tiene las velocidades rápidas y confiables que buscas. Perfecto para streaming y gaming y trabajar desde casa. Todo por solo $45 dólares al mes cuando agregas CoxMobo. Incluye equipo de Wi-Fi y garantía de precio de dos años en tu plan. ¡Yeah! ¡No esperes! ¡Gambia te hoy a Cox! Requiere CoxMobo que irán a limitar garantía de precio y incluye impuestos y cargos de velocidad de datos móviles se reduza después de 20 guías al mes.

3:25¿Quieres ver? ¿Quieres ver? ¿Quieres ver? ¿Quieres ver? Me voy a dejar en la frente y me voy a ver el momento. ¿Quieres ver? ¿Quieres hablar de lo que se puede hacer? ¿Quieres ver? ¡Sí! ¿Quieres ver? ¿Quieres ver? ¡Gracias! Y es en la referencia en el segundo número de pagos de este copio para personal pecadillos en el medio de la pagada. ¿Ahora? También los individuos individuales y sus familias han visto para personal pecadillos que permitió que la redacta era mi colección y no fue investigada. ¿Condido y me han encontrado en otros casos? Me recuerdo en un punto que se han visto, la redacta y la redacta de su familia y la redacta y la redacta y la redacta y me pensé que era un poco de la blindada. Ahora, el próximo tipo de... No sé... 17 o 18 líneas están redactadas. En ese punto, lo que voy a invitar es que esto no es un behavior típico por la defensa de la defensa. Y, despite all this,

4:26mi punto es que, despite all this, no podemos bajar. ¿Quieres ver? Eso no es el fútbol de la redacta. La redacta, la redacta, la redacta y la redacta. ¿Cuál es la redacta? ¿Dónde hay otros ejemplos donde la defensa de la defensa de la defensa se ha llegado a ustedes que no se ha llegado a la redacta con las elecciones de una persona? ¿Eres un empleo de la redacta? ¿Dónde hay que ver? ¿Dónde hay información regarding you or whatever respect que fue en la naturaleza de la idea de la idea o en la dirección de la redacta? Así que la referencia de la redacta fue que me iba a ser personalmente embarazada por suerte de esta manera porque me sería el subjeto de la captura en un libro en el prosecutorial de la redacta. ¿Anser? ¿Y ¿Quién va a la redacta? ¿Dónde hay que ver? ¿Anser? ¿Prefésor Dershowitz? ¿Question? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Anser? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién?

6:19¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? ¿Quién? No 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, but I don't recall talking to him. With respect to Professor Dershowitz, with respect to FIU, the dean process is very decentralized. To the extent of 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. But very long time ago.

7:20I 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 a 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 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. Quieres mejor internet, cox internet de 300 megas tiene las velocidades rápidas y confiables que buscas, perfecto para streaming y gaming y trabajar desde casa, todo por solo 45 dólares al mes cuando agregas coxmovo, incluye equipo de Wi-Fi y garantía de precio

8:25de 2 años en tu plan, no esperes, gambia te hoy a cox, requiere coxmovo que iban alimentar garantía de precio, no incluyen puestas y cargos de velocidad de datos moviles se reduza después de 20 gigas al mes. Quieres verlo, no recorreron, no recorreron. Quienes, así que rodeó un book called Traficking, ¿verdad? 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 MPA was signed. As she writes, he felt incapable of going up against those eight powerful attorneys.

9:28He felt his career was at stake. Could 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, 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, 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

10:31in my office, had previously encountered. Mr. Epstein hired an army of legal superstars, Harvard 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 formerly 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, 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 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,

11:37as to despite all of that, we held firm. So 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, alright, 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.

12:38I didn't want it to be one reporter in particular because I did not want to play favorites, and so I provided a to whom it made concern letter that was a public letter, but then I gave it to her. Alright, folks, we're in a 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. 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 18, now it's 18 months, it was 24.

13:41Whether it was 18 or 24, 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 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. And all right, you've mentioned the 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?

14:44Answer 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 associated 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 MPA that the MPA 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, in that I genuinely was of the opinion that the MPA would go public. And certainly his public, his state court plea, would be public, and his registration

15:46would 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 and hindsight, we know 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?

16:46There is, you know, going to the affidavit, at least one instance, 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 the redacted affidavit, 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 24th. 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. And I'll preface my question with the fact that we're still investigating this.

17:47We'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-prosecutor, you were relying on them to keep you informed, and for their judgment. And so I was U.S. attorney. I certainly relied on my staff, but ultimately I was a U.S. 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 A, B, 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 10, 2019 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.

18:47I've seen the interviews on television, of the victims, and their stories. Just to be clear, are you talking about interviews and television coverage in videos recently, or back in 2006? Answer recently. And OK, I just wanted to be very clear about that. The U.S. 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 injustice 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,

19:47and 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. And 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 15 of the internet transcript of that press conference? You were asked whether you ever made aware of Mr. 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. And you clarify, first of all, were you ever made aware of that answer? If you was, I'm not aware of it. Question. All right. The 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 aware the press reports from multiple sources, not from multiple sources, but from multiple media outlets that I told someone that he was an intelligence

20:50asset. 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 classified 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 one. No. All right. Excellent. Thank you. A couple of final questions. Answer. That is come up at times. Question. Yes. Answer. There are also media reports that this was because of cooperation and 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. As you can tell, OPR obtained many electronic records.

21:50Mainly 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 26, 2007, and March 2008. 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 know doubt, no, the law requires that US Attorney records be maintained and archived. And definitely, 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 to the department had some sort of records retention software that automatically retained the emails. Is that not accurate? Question.

22:51There was, there was a switch over from a period in which the record retention responsibility resided with each US Attorney office. And at the switch over, it 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 switch over. My recollection is that there was some automatic retention mechanism. Question. Okay. Answer. And I can't address that. Although there's certainly a Folsom 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 Folsom record and not to my recollection. All right. And is there any particular gap that you have discerned in the records that were that we've provided to you? Answer. Not that I recall. Do you have the emails that I sent out of curiosity?

23:51Answer. We do. Answer. Okay. So you have the sent, but not received. Question. Yes. Answer. Just checking. Question. And likewise, we retrieved from the Federal Records 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

24:54that will be the last question. Answer. Do we need a break? Mr. Addacted. No. Mr. Addacted. Your attorney says no. Acosta. Turns 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 weeks, we'll ship that off to you and your attorney. We'll 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. 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?

25:55Or is that determined? Mr. Addacted. I'm going to defer to Mr. Addacted for that Mr. Addacted. 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. Mr. Addacted. 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.