Alexander Acosta
Updated: Wikipedia source
Rene Alexander Acosta (born January 16, 1969) is an American attorney and politician. A member of the Republican Party, he was appointed by President George W. Bush to the National Labor Relations Board, and later served as the assistant attorney general for civil rights and the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida. He is a former dean of Florida International University College of Law. In 2005, police in Palm Beach, Florida, began investigating Jeffrey Epstein after a parent reported that he had sexually abused her 14-year-old daughter. In 2008, Acosta approved a controversial plea deal granting immunity from all federal criminal charges to Epstein. As part of the plea deal, Epstein served 13 months in a minimum-security county jail . He was also allowed to leave the facility up to 12 hours a day. From 2017 to 2019, Alexander Acosta served as the 27th United States secretary of labor. President Donald Trump nominated Acosta to be Labor Secretary on February 16, 2017, and he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 27, 2017. After Epstein's arrest in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges, Acosta faced criticism for his role in the 2008 non-prosecution agreement. He resigned from the Trump administration on July 19 and was replaced by Eugene Scalia. Since March of 2025, Acosta has been a member of the board of directors of Newsmax and serves as its Audit Committee chair.