WASHINGTON _ Alexander Acosta on Wednesday defended the 2007 plea deal he approved as the top federal prosecutor in Miami with Palm Beach billionaire Jeffrey Epstein in a child-sex case.
At his Senate confirmation hearing to be President Donald Trump's secretary of labor, Acosta pushed back at questions from 2016 Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine of Virginia about the deal that enabled Epstein to serve just one year in county jail.
"Why cut a non-prosecution despite your staff saying you shouldn't?" Kaine asked.
"That is not accurate," Acosta responded, disputing reports that in cutting the plea deal with Epstein, he rejected the advice of his senior lawyers when he served as U.S. attorney for Southern Florida.
"It was a broadly held decision," Acosta said.
Acosta, now dean of the Florida International University Law School, said he took an unusually strong position in the case by interceding as a federal prosecutor after a grand jury in Palm Beach County had recommended weak charges against Epstein.
"The grand jury recommended a single count of solicitation not involving minors," Acosta said. "That would have resulted in zero jail time, zero registration as a sexual offender and zero restitution for the victims in this case."
Instead, Acosta said, he elevated the case to the level of federal prosecution.
"It was highly unusual where a U.S. attorney becomes involved in a matter that has already gone to the grand jury at the state level," Acosta said. "We decided that Mr. Epstein should plead guilty to two years (in jail), register as a sexual offender, and concede liability so the victims should get restitution in this matter."
Acosta suggested that some of the allegations in the 52-page indictment of Epstein would have been difficult to prove in a trial.
"It is pretty typical in a prosecution for a draft indictment to be written," he said. "That doesn't necessarily mean that the draft indictment is filed because it doesn't necessarily mean the draft considers the underlying strength of the case."
Acosta also defended his decision not to require the specifics of the plea deal or underlying charges to be made public. They become public in an ongoing lawsuit filed in 2015.
Acosta, however, expressed some misgivings about keeping the deal private.
"Something that I think has changed over time is trust of government," Acosta said. "There was a time when keeping something confidential was less of an issue, but the public expectation today is that things be very public."
As a result of the decline in trust in government, he added, "Often a very positive outcome can become a negative outcome not because of a change in the underlying substance, but because of something not being public, it is looked at with suspicion."
On other issues, Acosta engaged in a long and contentious exchange with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., over his commitment to protect workers from the health risks of inhaling dust containing crystalline silica.
The Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration last year proposed two regulations that would restrict the use of crystalline silica and require contractors to increase protections for their workers.
When inhaled, silica dust can cause cancer and respiratory illness. It is a chemical compound often released from the drilling and cutting of brick, stone and concrete on construction sites or during home remodeling projects.
"Either you're going to stand up for 150 million American workers, including people being poisoned by silica, or you're not," Warren said.
Acosta said that, if confirmed to head the Labor Department, he would first have to review all regulations under a recent executive order from Trump that directed the heads of major federal agencies to eliminate or modify unnecessarily costly or burdensome rules.
"The point I'm trying to make is the president has directed each Cabinet officer to review all rules and to make determinations if any rules should be revised," Acosta said. "So based on that executive action, I cannot make a commitment."
That hedge prompted a sharp retort from Warren.
"You're telling me you can't say we ought to not take out rules that (if eliminated) will cause people to die," Warren said.
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