Trump’s labour secretary Alexander Acosta resigns amid Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking scandal

Donald Trump’s labor secretary, Alexander Acosta, has resigned following criticism of his handling of a 2008 plea deal with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who is awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking underage girls.

Trump announced the news on Friday with Acosta by his side at the White House. “Alex Acosta is a great secretary of labor,” Trump said. “I hate to see this happen.” He said he did not ask Acosta to leave the cabinet.

Acosta becomes the latest in a long line of high-profile officials to resign their post. The Trump administration holds the record for the highest turnover of cabinet and White House staff.

He said his resignation would be effective in seven days.

Acosta said he did not think it was right for his handling of Epstein’s case to distract from his work as secretary of labor.

"I called the president this morning and told him I thought the right thing was to step aside,” Acosta said, adding that “it would be selfish for me to stay in this position and continue talking about case that’s 12 years old rather than the amazing economy we have right now”.

Acosta was the US attorney in Miami when he oversaw a non-prosecution agreement for Epstein in 2008, which secretly ended a federal sex abuse investigation involving at least 40 teenage girls that could have landed him behind bars for life.

Epstein instead pleaded guilty to state charges and was jailed for 13 months – though he was allowed to leave during the day to work at his luxury office.

He paid settlements to victims and is a registered sex offender.

Fresh charges of sex trafficking filed this week against Epstein by federal prosecutors in New York had put Acosta’s role in the 2008 deal under renewed scrutiny.

The charges were brought following an investigation by the Miami Herald. He is accused of sexually exploiting and abusing dozens of underage girls from 2002 to 2005 at his homes in Manhattan, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida.

The indictment charges that Epstein “enticed and recruited, and caused to be enticed and recruited, minor girls” to “engage in sex acts with him, after which he would give the victims hundreds of dollars in cash”.