President Trump’s Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta has resigned amid the fallout of a controversial plea deal he brokered as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida in a sex crimes case against Jeffrey Epstein.
Per CNBC:
Acosta made the announcement to reporters while standing next to President Donald Trump outside the White House. Trump said that Acosta had called him Friday morning, and that it was Acosta’s decision to quit.
“This was him, not me,” Trump said in a lengthy exchange with the press before departing the White House en route to events in Wisconsin and Ohio.
His resignation came two days after Acosta gave a press conference in which he had defended a controversial non-prosecution agreement he had cut with Epstein’s lawyers in 2007, when he was the top prosecutor in Miami.
The issue reared its head last Saturday when authorities in New York arrested Epstein, whose connections to former President Bill Clinton are well-known.
For a time, Esptein and then-business mogul Donald Trump were friends. However, that relationship ended suddenly and irreconcilably after Trump banned Esptein permanently from Mar-a Lago for reportedly sexually assaulting a girl at the resort.
Acosta defended the plea deal in a press conference Wednesday. However, shortly afterward, the Labor Secretary privately concluded the damage had been done.
RELATED: 5 Takeaways From Acosta’s Bombshell Press Conference
(Video H/T ABC News)