HomePosts tagged 'Labor Secretary Alex Acosta'
Labor Secretary Alex Acosta
Epstein and Acosta… Acosta Resigns, Epstein's Victims Still Entitled to Justice
July 12, 2019 LostMessiah Jeffrey Epstein, Sex Trade, Sexual Abuse	Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Labor Secretary Alex Acosta
Trump speaks after Labor Secretary Acosta resigns
What we're covering here
The latest: President Trump took questions on a number of topics, including immigration and Democratic leaders, after announcing that Alex Acosta has resigned as Secretary of Labor.
Trump defends Acosta: The President said the resignation was Acosta's decision, not his, "because I'm with him."
Acosta's timing: This resignation comes after Acosta convened a news conference defending himself against accusations of prosecutorial malfeasance in the Jeffrey Epstein case.
President Trump announced Alex Acosta's resignation as secretary of labor from the White House lawn — but the conversation quickly turned to a number of unrelated topics.
Here's how it unfolded: President Trump, standing next to Acosta, announced that the labor secretary was stepping down. He insisted it was Acosta's decision — saying, "I just want to let you know, this was him, not me, because I'm with him" — before Acosta spoke.
Acosta addressed the renewed scrutiny over his previous handling of a plea deal with Jeffrey Epstein (you can read more about that here), saying he wanted to step down so the controversy doesn't become the focus of the Labor Department.
Then, Trump took questions from reporters — and they asked him about a lot of things not related to Acosta.
Jeffrey Epstein, Alex Acosta, Cutting the Budget for Trafficking Investigations and How Many Children at Risk?
July 11, 2019 LostMessiah Baby Trafficking, Jeffrey Epstein, Sex Trade	Child Trafficking, Jeffrey Epstein, Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, Sex Trafficking, Sexual Abuse
VIDEO: https://publish.dvlabs.com/democracynow/360/dn2019-0711.mp4?start=3214.0
Alex Acosta Enabled Jeffrey Epstein's Sex Crimes. Now He's Gutting Funding for Trafficking Victims
During a press conference Wednesday, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta dismissed calls for his resignation and defended the 2008 plea deal given to the billionaire serial child sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein while he was the U.S. attorney in Florida. Acosta has also come under fire for his proposal to cut funding for victims of sex trafficking. His 2020 budget proposal for the Department of Labor includes an almost 80% decrease in funds for the Bureau of International Labor Affairs, the office tasked with fighting child sex trafficking. Critics of the proposal argue it would effectively dismantle many programs aimed at preventing child sex trafficking and put large numbers of children at risk. We speak with Taina Bien-Aimé, executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women.
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I'm Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta is rejecting calls to resign and is defending his role in a 2008 plea deal given to the wealthy serial child sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein. At the time, Acosta was a U.S. prosecutor in Florida. The Miami Herald has described the plea deal as, quote, "one of the most lenient deals for a serial child sex offender in history."
AMY GOODMAN: Acosta has also come under fire for his proposal to cut funding for victims of sex trafficking. His 2020 budget proposal for the Department of Labor includes an almost 80% decrease in funds for International Labor Affairs Bureau. Acosta was questioned when he held an almost hour news conference to justify the extremely lenient deal he made with Epstein back in 2008 when he was the U.S. attorney in Florida. But this is what he said when questioned about the budget around sex trafficking.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: As labor secretary, you've tried repeatedly to cut a program that deals with human trafficking in the Labor Department by up to 80%, going before Congress advocating for that. Why should people trust you to focus on human trafficking and protect victims, if you've done that? And I'd like a follow-up question.
LABOR SECRETARY ALEXANDER ACOSTA: So, you're referring to grants that go to foreign countries, for foreign country labor-related work. As part of the budget every year, those grants have been removed, as have other grants for foreign countries. And let me just add, as part of the budget every year, those grants are put right back in by Congress. This is what happens in Washington. And I fully suspect that those grants will remain in this year.
AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about Alex Acosta's record, we're joined now by Taina Bien-Aimé, executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women.
We're not as much talking right now about the case of Jeffrey Epstein, which we talked about over the last few days, but this issue of his cutting of the budget. Can you explain what this means?
TAINA BIEN-AIMÉ: So, the Department of Labor has a bureau called ILAB, which is the International Labor Affairs Bureau. And their primary responsibility is to combat forced labor, child trafficking, both labor and sex trafficking, and human trafficking in general. So, what Secretary Acosta is saying, that it goes primarily—that this money goes primarily to international programs, is correct, but it also goes to domestic programs.
So, if he slashes—so, he has a budget of $68 million. What he is proposing is for the bureau, ILAB, to be reduced by 80%, to $18 million. Congress will fight him on that; the Appropriations Committee will fight him on that. But what it means is that we are faced with an administration that wants to reduce its efforts to this very complex human rights violation called human trafficking. So, it's not just jeopardizing the work that we are doing to combat child sex trafficking, but also child labor trafficking. So, many of—the State Department also works on human trafficking and also provides services and programs to combat it, but they rely on DOL, on the Department of Labor, and specifically for child labor trafficking.
So, for instance, cocoa production, right? So, there are three major U.S. companies—Hershey, Mars and Nestlé—that cannot even—they committed to ensuring to the consumers that no child labor trafficking is involved in the production of cocoa. What will happen to those commitments? Right? We don't even know whether they are fulfilling their commitments to ensure that whenever you buy a bag of M&M's or Skittles, that that doesn't involve child trafficking.
Jeffrey Epstein, Labor Secretary Acosta and an Unprecedented Plea Deal… that Should Never Have Happened [VIDEO]
July 9, 2019 July 9, 2019 LostMessiah Jeffrey Epstein, Sex Trade, Sexual Abuse	Jeffrey Epstein, Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, Sex Trafficking, Sexual Abuse