A bombshell new report has pulled another president’s administration into the never-ending Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
This time, the spotlight is on former President George W. Bush’s Department of Justice and how federal prosecutors handled Epstein’s original criminal case nearly two decades ago.
The report, published by the Miami Herald and written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Julie K. Brown, digs into the 2007 plea deal that allowed Epstein to avoid serious federal consequences despite disturbing allegations involving dozens of young girls.
Brown’s reporting helped reignite public interest in the Epstein case years ago and played a major role in bringing renewed attention to the disgraced financier before his 2019 arrest.
The latest report focuses heavily on former Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter, who launched the first criminal investigation into Epstein in the mid-2000s.
Reiter spent years trying to build a case against the wealthy and politically connected financier. According to the report, he gathered evidence and interviewed around two dozen girls and their parents.
But instead of seeing Epstein hit with a major prosecution, Reiter said he was blocked, ignored, and eventually pushed aside.
The report claims then-Miami U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta began negotiating a secret plea deal with Epstein in 2007 after Epstein had been arrested the previous year on a felony solicitation charge.
Acosta would later become President Donald Trump’s labor secretary during Trump’s first term.
According to Reiter, he grew so alarmed by how the case was being handled that he asked to meet directly with Acosta.
“I’m here to ask you to live up to the principles that you espoused when you were sworn in,” Reiter recalled telling him.
Reiter said he pressed Acosta on who had the power to decide whether Epstein would face federal prosecution.
“We turned it over to you. We did most of the work,” Reiter reportedly said, noting that prosecutors had once indicated they could get long sentences on each count if the case moved forward.
Reiter also said he warned Acosta that Epstein’s high-powered legal team appeared to be manipulating the federal prosecutor’s office.
According to Reiter’s account, Acosta replied that his office had been getting “guidance from main justice” and that Epstein’s defense attorneys had been very effective in stalling the case.
That phrase, “main justice,” refers to the Department of Justice headquarters in Washington, D.C.
At the time, the Justice Department was operating under the Bush administration and was overseen by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Epstein ultimately pleaded guilty to just one count of solicitation, even though authorities reportedly knew of as many as 40 potential victims.
He served a relatively light sentence and was allowed work-release privileges, a deal that has been widely condemned for years.
Epstein was not indicted on federal sex trafficking charges involving minors until 2019.
His name later became a political headache for Trump’s team when Acosta was being considered for labor secretary. During that vetting process, Acosta was reportedly asked whether the Epstein case would create trouble during confirmation hearings.
According to reports, Acosta told Trump’s transition team that he had been told Epstein “belonged to intelligence” and to leave the case alone.
Acosta was still appointed to Trump’s Cabinet and served as labor secretary for two years before eventually resigning in 2019 as outrage over the Epstein deal exploded again.
Reiter told Brown that Epstein’s ability to go unchecked for so long, despite the number of powerful people around him, remains one of the most devastating failures of the justice system in modern history.
He said some reforms have been made since the Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell cases came to light, but warned that the real test is whether the system actually learns from what went wrong.
“But the true measure of success will be whether the system learns from its failures and acts on those lessons,” Reiter said.
The Epstein scandal has long haunted politicians, prosecutors, celebrities, and billionaires connected to his world.
Now, this new report is raising fresh questions about what officials in Washington knew, who was calling the shots, and why Epstein received such a stunningly lenient deal in the first place.