Above His Pay Grade

Four Epstein victims, Twitter/Miami Herald via Women in the World.

I see Alex Acosta didn't do much reverting, during his command performance for Trump yesterday or his resignation today, to that weird little thing he'd told the Trump transition team:

“Is the Epstein case going to cause a problem [for confirmation hearings]?” Acosta had been asked. Acosta had explained, breezily, apparently, that back in the day he’d had just one meeting on the Epstein case. He’d cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein’s attorneys because he had “been told” to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone,” he told his interviewers in the Trump transition, who evidently thought that was a sufficient answer and went ahead and hired Acosta. (Vicki Ward via TPM)

Yesterday he said Justice Department regulations forbade him to talk about it, the Washington Examiner thinks, but I think they may be trying to hard to interpret nonsense:

“So, there has been reporting to that effect. And let me say, there’s been report to a lot of effects in this case. Not just now but over the years. And again, I would, I would hesitate to take this reporting as fact,” Acosta said.... “This was a case that was brought based on the facts,” said Acosta. “And I look at the reporting and others. I can’t address it directly because of our guidelines.”

I'm pleased to report that I instantly thought the story was bullshit:

This will turn out to be Acosta bullshitting

— O'er the Airports We Watched (@Yastreblyansky) July 11, 2019

If that had been the reason, obviously the reason he gave yesterday, blaming Epstein's light charge and lighter sentence, on a Palm Beach County prosecutor (in essence, "Well, he was going to let him off completely until I complained about it"), was a lie, which it indeed seems to have been as far as the Palm Beach prosecutor is concerned:

"As the State Attorney for Palm Beach County for 16 years (1993-2009), which included the entire period of the Epstein investigation, I can emphatically state that Mr. Acosta's recollection of this matter is completely wrong," Krischer wrote in a statement obtained by CNN.

"Mr. Acosta brokered a secret plea deal that resulted in a Non-Prosecution Agreement in violation of the Crime Victim's Rights Act. Mr. Acosta should not be allowed to rewrite history." (CNN)

And given all the evidence that he did indeed broker a secret deal with the Epstein defense, it was indeed a lie. But that doesn't mean this CIA story is true either. It isn't. It meant he didn't want to be asked any more questions about it when he fed it to the transition team, and even more so to the press yesterday ("I can't address it directly"). It means Acosta is a pathological liar with things he wants to hide, and really nothing he says can be taken at face value.

Speaking of not wanting to be asked any more questions, I imagine that's why Acosta turned around so quickly (Steve thinks he simply failed Trump's test and wasn't viperish enough, as compared to Brett Kavanaugh and Lindsey Graham, and I guess there's something to that; Trump gave him a sporting chance to trash-talk his way into surviving). Because Trump doesn't want to be asked any more question relating to Epstein. As with the Flynn firing way back at the beginning of all these horrors, he's hoping this slightly inconvenient sacrifice will make it go away. (Very slightly—I doubt he'll ever ask the Senate to confirm another labor secretary, since he seems to have decided he'd rather not have anybody confirmed any more, as he said in relation to Patrick Shanahan's extremely cloudy departure from Defense: "As you know, Pat was acting [defense secretary]," Trump said. "And so, acting gives you much greater flexibility. A lot easier to do things. So that's the way it is. Too bad.")

I think it won't, though. I think the voices of those girls are really starting to echo, at last.