BY THE MIAMI HERALD EDITORIAL BOARD
President Trump, who expressed support for Alex Acosta, said that Acosta made the decision himself to step down as secretary of Labor. MARK WILSON GETTY IMAGES
It was never a matter of “if,” but “when” Alex Acosta would step down in the days after sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest.
Acosta, the U.S. secretary of Labor did resign on Friday — two days after he tried to make a logical case for the lenient deal he gave Epstein — which he didn’t; six days after Epstein’s arrest in New Jersey; six months after the Herald Editorial Board said Acosta should resign; and 11 years after Acosta did little to land Epstein — alleged to have sexually molested or raped dozens of young girls, some barely in their teens, at his mansion in Palm Beach County — in prison for a long time.
He broke faith with the young victims of whom Epstein took advantage. Acosta thought so little of them that he didn’t deem it important enough to inform them that Epstein was going to jail for a ridiculously short period of time. Just this past February, a federal judge in Florida ruled Acosta’s egregious misstep illegal. Now that he has resigned as labor secretary, how will Acosta be held accountable for that arrogant lapse?
Acosta also failed the broader public, in letting a wealthy man whom he forced to register as a sexual offender to be released, free to continue his crimes if he desired, if not in Florida, then anywhere else in the world.
Continue reading at: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article232598287.html
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