Tag: Alex Acosta

Top aide to Labor secretary to depart after clash with White House

Nick Geale, the top aide to Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, is leaving the Trump administration after a clash with White House officials who regarded him as personally difficult and an impediment to President Trump’s deregulatory agenda, according to sources with direct knowledge.

Behind the scenes: Senior White House officials — especially within the Domestic Policy Council — have made it clear to Acosta that they’re frustrated that, in their view, the Labor Department hasn’t been moving quickly or aggressively enough on deregulation. And some have pointed to Geale as the problem. The White House also separately lodged a complaint about Geale.

A source who is close to the president and has direct knowledge of the situation told me: “The pace of change has not been sufficient. [Acosta] tends to be fairly fearful of taking hardline positions. He tends to be solicitous of the unions, often making the argument that that’s what the president wants.”

View the complete May 14 article by Jonathan Swan on the Axios website here.

White House ‘looking into’ Acosta’s role in sex offender’s illegal plea deal

Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined Friday to say whether Trump still has confidence in his labor secretary

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Friday declined to say whether President Donald Trump still has confidence in Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta a day after a federal judge ruled the Justice Department broke the law while Acosta was a U.S. attorney.

Florida-based U.S. District Judge Kenneth A. Marra ruled Thursday that Acosta — then the U.S. attorney in Miami — signed off on a 2008 plea deal with Jeffrey Epstein, the Palm Beach billionaire and serial sex abuser, without informing victims about what they were doing.

“My understanding is that it’s a very complicated case, something we’re certainly looking into,” Sanders said Friday.

Alex Acosta, you made a mockery of Florida’s sex offender laws. It’s time to resign.

Palm Beach multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein is a free man, despite sexually abusing dozens of underage girls according to police and prosecutors. His victims have never had a voice, until now. Credit: Emily Michot and Julie K. Brown

They are young women now living in the empowering #MeToo movement of the times. But when wealthy Palm Beach hedge-fund manager Jeffrey Epstein sexually abused them, they were only 14 to 17.

Remember that age?

The naïveté behind the façade of grown-up girl. The peer pressure and the boy pressure you don’t know you’re under until you’re an adult looking back. And, if you’re poor and had a troubled childhood, add to the mix the need to make money too early in life.

View the complete November 30 article by Fabiola Santiago on The Miami Herald website here.