be a champion for victims of human trafficking if your record doesn't demonstrate it. >> chris lou and marcy, thank you both so much. have a great weekend. that's "all in" for this evening. "the rachel maddow show" starts now. we're going to have the reporter from the "miami herald" that broke up that story. she's going to be joining us live this hour. >> julie k. brown who should win all the awards. it is a model of what great local newspaper reporting looks like. >> and impact journalism. talk about the impact of what she's been able to do. stunning. thanks for your coverage, much appreciated. >> yeah, i'll watch it. >> thanks to you at home for joining us. it is friday. you know what that means. five news cycles of news already crammed into this one day and we are still waiting for what we think will be a pretty big news maybe sometime tonight from the office of robert mueller, the special counsel. there is a court ordered deadline tonight for the special counsel's office to submit to a

federal judge in washington d.c. the prosecution's sentencing submission related to president trump's campaign chairman, paul manafort. now just to be clear about what this is, what we are waiting for tonight, you'll remember that paul manafort was actually brought up on federal charges in two different neighboring jus dictions. he was brought up on charges in virginia and also in washington d.c. he could have combined those two. seems like in retrospect, that might have been a good move but he didn't. so a week ago tonight we got prosecutors sentencing submission from manafort in the virginia case where they recommend he serve 19 to 24 years in prison and that he pay fines and restitution ranging from several million dollars to several tens of millions of dollars. we're still waiting on the defense, excuse me, the defense submission in response to that from paul manafort's defense team in virginia. we actually think we'll get that response from them a week from tonight on friday march 1st.

thereafter, that judge in that virginia case will look at that submission from the prosecution and the judge will look at that submission from the defense and look at the sentencing guidelines what manafort was convicted of in that trial in his courtroom and two weeks from tonight on friday, march 8th, manafort is due to get his sentence handed down in that case in virginia. so that's everything that's happened thus far. what we are waiting on tonight has nothing to do with the virginia case. tonight we are waiting on prosecutors' recommendation for what sentence paul manafort should get in the other case. with the case that was brought against him in washington d.c. and that will again start this whole recourse of process where we get the submission of prosecutors and manafort's defense team will submit their own recommendations from the sentence. that is expected to come in on monday and the d.c. case, the d.c. judge will consider both of

those submissionsubmissions. the judge will look at the sentencing guidelines and look at the circumstances of manafort's case and the ultimate sentence for that jurisdiction on march 13th. so both of these things are coming to an end. manafort is coming to an end of the line in both of these jurisdictions where he was charged with federal crimes and the reason there is so much anticipation about this particular sentencing document by tonight's deadline is that for everything we've been through with manafort thus far, with the charges in d.c. and charges in virginia and him mounting a defense and rick gates being a cooperator and standing firm and saying he wasn't going to plead guilty and cooperate and manafort got convicted of a bunch of felonies and did decide to plead guilty

and did say he would cooperate and his cooperation deal fell apart. there was witness tampering and revocation of bail and jailing him and allegations of him lying to prosecutor after his cooperation deal. there is so still a dangling thread of the russian co-defendant. his former employee who prosecutors and the fbi say is linked to russian intelligence actively now. for all of the drama around the prosecution of trump campaign chairman paul manafort, what we are expecting tonight in all likelihood will be the last word from robert mueller, the last word from the special counsel's office about this case and about this defendant. and, you know, anything can happen but the way it looks like things are going, this will sort of be it. i mean, in this document, in this kind of document, prosecutors can say as much or little as they want and be aztec nickel as they want or sweeping and narrative as they want but

as far as we know, this sentencing recommendation tonight from the special counsel's office about paul manafort will be kind of the final scene between mueller and manafort. if mueller is ever going to spell out for the public and for the court the full gravity and the full scope of what the president's campaign chairman paul manafort did wrong, this sentencing document in d.c. is likely to be the document in which he does that. so because of that expectation, me and all the prosecution -- all the producers that work on this show and everybody else in the country who covers this story, we've been like kittens with their claws out hanging from a tree limb all day long waiting for this thing to come out. now the deadline is technically today. that definitely doesn't mean close of business. i guess it means as long as you can stay up. there is the possibility that the prosecutors will meet the court's deadline but they will submit something that needs to

go through some sort of unredax pr -- we were expecting to see it today. we shall see. few hours left. we'll have more in a second. we'll be covering tonight a big curveball thrown into the manafort case at the last minute today and a story broken by greg ferrell at bloomberg news. and that is all still ahead but you should also know, that we also got an unexpected news break today from reporters juliette and lisa reign at the washington post about the possibility of a criminal indictment of a recently departed trump cabinet official. no, not that one. not labor secretary alex acosta. we'll talk about his potential criminal liability later on this hour, too. but that's not who i mean. see, alex acosta is still u.s. labor secretary, which makes it all the more amazing that we're going to be talking about his

potential criminal liability tonight. this unexpected news we got this afternoon from "the washington post" is about a former trump cabinet official, about ryan zinke. the trump cabinet official you may remember assigned to run up to the roof of the department headquarters and put up his personal ryan zinke flag up every time he entered the building. he had a special flag that meant ryan zinke is in the house and it was a person's job to run and put that flag up wherever ryan zinke walked through the door. by the time ryan zinke announced his resignation as interior secretary, he was not only famous for that but having found his way into no less than 15 different ethics investigations covering the tenure of his less than two years in office.

although ryan zinke has characterized his december resignation as voluntarily, he had reportedly been told if he did not resign as interior secretary he would be fired. ryan zinke upon being told that then told white house staffers that okay, he would resign but he wasn't going to resign until after he was able to throw himself a christmas party at the department of the interior, which he did. part of the reason we know he did because he posed for photos in front of a large stuffed bear wearing a santa cap. he had to stay until he could do that. literally the following day, the day after he had his interior department christmas party with the stuffed bear, the party he invited lobbyists to so they could take pictures with him with the dead bear with the santa hat on, the day after that he finally consented to resign. once he got that important task done with. one of the things that ryan

zinke got in trouble for as interior secretary is getting rid of the independent inspector general that brought several of these inquiries on ethics issues. he was not able to get rid of the interior department inspector general despite his best efforts and urn thes oturn of the inquiries launched into him that concerned ryan zinke's decision about casino gambling and indian tribes, the inspector general's inquiry into that matter went especially pear shaped for ryan zinke when officials kacame to believe he lied to them over the course of their inquiries into that particular scandal. so in late october, "the washington post" reported that that had resulted in ryan zinke bei being referred for criminal investigation for potentially lying to investigators. now tonight "the washington post" reports that the justice department didn't just sit on the criminal referral, federal

prosecutors begun presenting evidence to a grand jury in washington d.c. with an eye toward indicting zinke for lying to investigators. as of today, the post reports that zinke hill self-has not been called to appear before this grand jury but they have two sources confirming that in fact this grand jury has been convened. and, down next although a lot of trump cabinet officials or nominees or other senior trump officials have been driven out of washington trailed by very serious scandals, depending how this goes, ryan zinke may be the first official to face a federal criminal indictment, which is a very serious thing and if that is where this is going, somebody please save a seat in the courtroom for the stuffed bear. we will be watching that closely. i should tell you as of yet, there has been no comment from the white house on this reporting at all but tonight, i can tell you, one of our

producers from the show was able to reach mr. zinke by phone to ask him personally for comment he did give us a comment on the story tonight. his comment was quote, have a great day. bye, bye. better than no comment. here is something else we are watching tonight. as we have been waiting all day on the prosecutor's sentencing memo related to paul manafort, "the new york times" also just broke some new news on president trump's long-time lawyer michael cohen. as you know, michael cohen had been ordered to present himself less than two weeks from now. he had been ordered to present himself on march 6th to start his federal prison sentence. earlier this week the judge granted him a delay for his prison sentence start date. instead of march 6th. he's expected to start his prison sentence on may 6th. that's an extra 60 days before she has

he has to show up and serve his term. michael cohen and lawyers asked for the delay for two reasons. they said he had shoulder surgery and needs time to recover from the surgery. but secondly, they said he is wanted in congress and that's been very time consuming in terms of him getting ready to go to prison. over three consecutive days michael cohen is scheduled to give testimony to three congressional coal mitt mmittee. he'll talk behind closed doors tuesday and thursday to the intelligence committees. in between the intelligence committee hearings on tuesday and thursday, on wednesday starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern, there will be what everybody is expecting to be a blockbuster day of testimony from cohen in open session before the house oversight committee under the leadership of democratic chairman elijah cummings. and the reason everybody is expecting this to be a bit of a blockbuster is not just because it's going to be an open hearing. it's also because of the list of

topics that chairman comings publicly released ahead of the testimony to give us a sense of what cohen will be testifying about. chairman cummings said he does not want to step on the toes of committees so he will not be asked questions about things that can only be discussed in the secure classified environment the committees will offer for closed door testimony. but that doesn't mean that in the open hearing they are only going to be asking michael cohen about the weather and what he's packing for his trip to prison. this is the list of topics that elijah cummings announced. quote. after consulting with the department of justice and with chairman adam schiff of the house intelligence, chairman comi cummings set the scope to address the following issues. number one, you can just stop me here. number one, the president's debts and payments relating to efforts to influence the 2016

election. now the only debts we know about for the president involve supposedly business related bank loans with institutions like bank and related to efforts to influence the 2016 election. let alone why that committee's payments of some kind. they think michael cohen will be able to testify. if that were the only issue they said they would be discussing with michael cohen, that would probably make for a lot of people watching that hearing with great interest. we don't know what they mean by that. that will be fascinating to see. but that is only one of ten

according to elijahcummings, the president's compliance with campaign finance laws. the president's compilliance wi tax laws and conflicts of interest. the president's business practices will come back to that one in a moment. the trump international hotel in washington d.c. for which the president has been sued for allegedly violating the clause of the constitution and also quote the accuracy of the president's public statements. oh. god. also quote potentially fraud length or inappropriate practices by the trump foundation the trump foundation is the president's sort of charity that has already been the subject of considerable legalwrangling and the tenth topic they want to go through in the open hearing on wednesday is quote public efforts by the president and his attorney to

intimidate mr. cohen and others to testify. that is the agenda for michael cohen's testimony wednesday morning 10:00 a.m. eastern time. his expected attendance at that hearing and the other closed door hearings plus the time and effort needed to prepare him for the hearings, those are things sited by cohen's defense counsel in asking the judge in his case for a delay in his report date to start the federal prison sentence and the judge agreed and gave him an extra 60 days. you have to keep in mind that expected public testimony for cohen and how he got into the pickle in the first place. it was august of last year when cohen pled guilty to two pham felo -- felony campaign finance

charges and president trump directed and those felony charges were brought against cohen by federal prosecutors operating out of the u.s. prosecutor's office. that was august. but then surprise, in november, michael cohen turned up in federal court. that was not brought by sdny but prosecutors from robert mueller's office and working for the special counsel and that one additional felony that michael cohen pled guilty to in november was a charge specifically of lying to congress, lying to the intelligence committees about something related to the president's business. specifically efforts by the president's business to develop a trump tower moscow. the negotiations to build a trump tower in moscow ex end te much later than he previously

admitted and admitted to lying about the extent to which those efforts to pursue that moscow project involved direct contact and negotiations between the trump organization and the russian government. so he pleads to most of that stuff in august. he pops up again in november to plead to the one additional felony and in december, soon after he popped up in court to plead guilty to the one additional felony. michael cohen was back in the same courtroom before the judge to be sentenced on all of those felonies put together on the one from the special counsel's office about lying about trump tower moscow plus all the earlier felonies including the campaign finance felonies he pled to after being charged by sdn, sdny. you might remember that the special counsel's office basically asked for lenience for the judge for cohen. they described him as a valuable cooperating witness but the other prosecutors, the

prosecutors for sdny, the prosecutors who brought most of the charges for which cohen pled guilty, they did not ask the judge for considerable leniency for michael cohen. despite the fact he offered this very effective cooperation to robert mueller and the special counsel. that's all well and good but according to the prosecutors, michael cohen shouldn't be considered a full cooperating witness. they thought there was a lot more cohen should have and could have coughed up if he really did want a break. they told the judge quote, with respect to cohen's provision of information to this office and two meetings with him, this office assessed cohen to be forthright and credible and the information he provided was largely consistent with other evidence gathered. had cohen actually cooperated,

it could have been fruitful. he did provide what could have been useful information about matters relating to on going investigations being carried out by this office but as cohen ly his decision and declined to provide full information about the scope of criminal conduct in which he may have engaged or had knowledge. indeed cohen only met with the office, the sdny prosecutors about the participation of others in the campaign finance crimes to which cohen pled guilty. cohen specifically declined to be debriefed under uncharged criminal conduct if any in his past. cohen further declined to meet with this office about other areas of investigative interest to successfully cooperate with this office, they must undergo full debriefings that encompass the full criminal history and any and all information about

crimes committed by themselves and others. this process permits them to assess the candor, culpability and complications to any potential cooperators and results in cooperating witnesses who having accepted full responsibility for any and all misconduct are credible to law enme enforcement and hopefully to judges and juries. cohen affirmatively chose not to pursue this process. cohen's efforts fell short of cooperation as that term is properly used in this district because michael cohen elected not to pursue more full some cooperation including other subjects and on his own history, this office cannot assess the overall level of cohen's cooperation to be significant. and so judge, throw him in jail. and that is in part how michael cohen ended up with a three-year prison sentence that he was due to start in a couple weeks, he'll now start in may. and by all accounts, michael

cohen was shocked to get a three-year prison sentence. it was clear his family was definitely shocked by the length of that sentence. but now here is the thing. we are going to have expert help here in a second to explain this better. i am not a lawyer, nobody should ever site anything i say in their own defense in court. but as i understand it, under federal law, you do sort of have one more card to play, potentially after you've been given your sentence by a federal judge. if prosecutors are interested in what you may have to say, and if you can offer prosecutors substantial assistance toward the investigation or prosecution of another person, even after you have been sentenced, prosecutors can go back to the judge and sentenced you and ask that judge after the fact to please revise your sentence to make it more lean gennient, to t

the fact you offered helpful cooperation even if you did it after you got sentence that and pro vivision in federal law, i' not sure if that's poet vmotivi michael cohen but "the new york times" reports that he is since his sentence, he is meeting with federal prosecutors now and he's reportedly giving them at least interesting, if not valuable information. "the new york times" reports tonight that mr. cohen apparently opened up some new spe spe information with prosecutors and sdny that brought the felony charges against him who thereafter told the judge hearing his case he was not being that corporative. quoting from "the times" michael d cohen, president trump's lawyer and fixer met with

prosecutors in manhattan offering information about possible irregularities within the president's family business and about a donor to the inaugural l cocommittee. mr. cohen that worked with the trump organization for a decade talked to the prosecutors about insurance claims the trump organization filed over the years. "the time" says people familiar with the matter, "the times" says people familiar with the matter did not elaborate on the nature of the possible irregularities out trump organization that mr. cohen has been talking to prosecutors about but remember these are the same prosecutors that got michael cohen to plead guilty to the campaign finance felonies in which they said the president himself was implicated and in which at least in one instance, the money for those campaign finance felonies appears to have been basically laundered through the president's business and trump organization where they appeared to have falsely booked those illegal campaign donations

as expenses for a legal retainer that wasn't a real thing. well, now what the times is reporting is michael cohen expanded his cooperation with the same prosecutors to include something else about the president's business, something else related to insurance claims that the company has filed over time. we do not know anything at all about what those insurance claims might be or how serious this might be but i imagine mr. cohen will be asked on wednesday morning and if this does turn out to be valuable information as it pertains to the investigation or prosecution of another person, we may find out yet more about it in the form of some request for a sentence reduction from sdny prosecutors back at that judge who already gave cohen three years. told you it's been a big day. but again tonight, we are waiting on the special counsel's office as it pertains to the president's campaign chairman and we've got details on that including that curveball in the

manafort case coming up next. stay with us. e manafort case coming up next stay with us ♪ turn up your swagger game with one a day gummies. one serving... ...once a day... ...with nutrients that support 6 vital functions... ...and one healthy you. that's the power of one a day. with advil liqui-gels, what stiff joints? what bad back? advil is... relief that's fast. strength that lasts. you'll ask... what pain? with advil liqui-gels.

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like everybody else, we're waiting on robert mueller's office on a deadline to file a paper to see how paul manafort should be sentenced. we do not know what manafort will be d.c. and facing up to 24 years in prison based on his case in virginia. one consequence of the fact that paul manafort is looking to is that led to on going and increasing discussions about whether or not the president might see paul manafort as a candidate for the long sentence itself but also because a good part of the reason why paul manafort is looking at such a long sentence right now is because he blew up his cooperation deal with prosecutors. and part of the way he blew up his cooperation deal with prosecutors is by trying to conceal from them the extent of his communications with a guy

linked to russian military in l intelligen intelligence, which means he was trying to conceal the extent of communications between the trump campaign at the highest levels and a person linked to russian military intelligence during the time russian military intelligence was intervening in the presidential election to benefit donald trump. that was nice of him to do that. especially if it's going to cost him the rest of his life in prison. both manafort's long expected sentence and the reason he got it have led to fears/expectations that the president might want to pardon manafort. and those fears/expectations led perhaps today to this scoop from greg ferrell. if paul manafort is pardoned by president trump, manafort might still be looking at significant legal jeopardy and potentially significant prison time because

a presidential pardon only gets you off the hook for federal crimes and he is staring down the barrel of serious new york state charges, as well. quote new york state prosecutors put together a criminal case against paul manafort they could file quickly if the former chairman of donald trump's 2016 campaign receive as presidential pardon. the array of tax and charges against manafort are being seen as an insurance policy should the president exercise his power to freeman that fort with manaf. the charges could be brought in new york state if manafort were pardoned by president trump. the story was followed by "the new york times" which reported that manafort will be looking at the state charges soon whether

or not he'll get a pardon. this could shield him from jail time but isn't a simple thing. if paul manafort has been charged with the crimes, tax fraud and bank fraud, if he's been charged with these at the federal level, he can't be charged with them again at the state level, right? isn't that something called double jeopardy? aren't you supposedly protected by that by the constitution. joining us is barbara mcquaid. i have been being armature lawyer here tonight. so glad you're here to resume me. >> thanks, rachel. coincidentally, we just talked about this in my law school class today so i'm all over it. >> the double jeopardy? >> yes. >> why wouldn't -- as i understand it, double jeopardy means you can't be charged for the same thing twice. how can state prosecutors might charge paul manafort for essentially the same set of facts we seen laid out in his court cases in federal court after he's already been charged with these things at the federal

level? >> in most states there is this concept known as the dual sovereignty doctrine that says you can be charged in the federal system after you've been charged in the state. that's an issue currently before the supreme court this term but new york has more double jeopardy laws. in new york once you've been charged federally, you can't be charged with the same crime in the state system but there are lots of other potential crimes to choose from. for example, paul manafort is charged with federal tax violations. there is nothing to prevent new york from bringing state tax violations. there might be other crimes i read in the same report that there are recordkeeping violations potentially available to charge in new york. as long as they are different crimes, there would not be a double jeopardy problem. >> so even if it is the same general set of conduct, you can

weave your way through. >> yeah, in new york they have lots of opportunities to look at things. if the elements of the offenses are different, typically you'll be able to avoid double jeopardy. >> in terms of the details, one of the things that's being reported is this isn't just a plan in among new york state prosecutors, this are reports that a state grand jury is already considering evidence against manafort on state crimes and that this grand jury for example issued subpoenas that to a couple banks inch katmplicate. does that indicate to you that prosecutors believe they sort of solved those issues about whether or not he is liable to state prosecution here? >> i think they could not convene the grand jury many they didn't have the potential. they are looking through the legal problem and trying to build a factual basis. they wouldn't bother to present evidence before a grand jury if they thought it was legally barred on the end. >> let me ask you about this

reporting that we've had from "the new york times" about michael cohen, michael cohen is due to start his prison sentence soon and looking at three years. "the new york times" reports that he has been back again sitting down with prosecutors since his sentencing offering new information he hadn't previously talked to them about potential irregularities or questionable conduct by the president's business and we have very little information about what those irregularities might be and conduct might be. it's said to be related in part to insurance claims made by the trump organization. my, again, lay observers take on this is this might be an effort by michael cohen to try to have a sentence reduced even though he's already been sentenced to try to get the judge in his case to go back and lightening his load basically because of cooperation that he's doing with prosecutors right now even while he's on his way to prison. >> yes and youly earlier. rule 35 says up to one year

after your sentencing, a defendant still can have his sentence reduced for substantial assistance on motion of the government. so only if the government believes that the cooperation has reached substantial assi assistan assistance, the government may move and ask the court to reduce the sentence already imposed. he could continue to earn a reduction by providing information even after his sentencing. >> would the government only do that, would they only move to reduce a sentence or ask the judge to reduce the sentence if that information in fact contributed to meaningfully to a new investigation or prosecution? would it have to actually go somewhere or be a good try? >> yeah, it has to actually go somewhere. substantial assistance is a term of art and has a definition and means providing assistance in the investigation or prosecution of others. many times people would come in and try to provide substantial assistance and it didn't pan out. it wasn't good information or you could not corroborate it.

it has to arise to that level in order for michael cohen to receive that credit. he has an incentive to provide good information. >> barbara mcquaid, former u.s. attorney in the eastern district of michigan. perfect. appreciate you being here. >> thanks, rachel. much more ahead tonight, stay with us. achel. much more ahead tonight, stay with us isn't what goes into your soup... just as important as what you get out of it? our broccoli cheddar is made with aged melted cheddar, simmered broccoli, and no artificial flavors. enjoy 100% clean soup today. panera. food as it should be.

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he's a well connected multi millionaire and powerful high profile people and been friends with people like former president bill clinton and current president donald trump and member of the british royal

family. in 2005, florida police and then the fbi started investigating him and what they turned up was a horror movie. investigators found that this man named jeffrey epstein was essentially running a sprawling criminal operation to sexual assault and rape lots of underaged girls. jeffrey epstein was in his 50s, many of his victims were kids. girls as young as 13. the fbi was able to identify dozens of girls who had been epstein's victims. they prepared a 53-page document laying out federal charges which could have easily sent epstein to prison for the rest of his life. but that of course is not what happened to jeffrey epstein. because the u.s. attorney in that case, the man who is currently president trump's secretary of labor, he made a deal that saved jeffrey epstein from being charged with any federal crimes and that also prevented federal charges against any potential accomplices of jeffrey epstein, as well.

back when that fbi investigation was going on, alex acosta was the u.s. attorney in that part of florida instead of charging with child sex crimes, acosta cut a deal and allowed epstein to into a non-prosecution agreement that gave immunity from all federal charges. instead epstein pled guilty to two state charges for prostitution because definitely when you're doing this kind of stuff to kids, it matters whether or not you're paying them. that's what the law cares about. clearly, they are prostitutes. he served 13 months in a county jail. a county jail sentence where he was mostly allowed to spend time in his office six days a week doing whatever he wanted to do because there was a generous work release program set up for him. he was also in a private wing of that lockup. alex acosta then the top prosecutor in florida, he was the one who approved that deal with jeffrey epstein. and it's turned out to be very important to that story that mr.

acosta agreed to do that deal in secret. there is a federal law, a law called the crime victims rights act that gives crime victims the right to be told when there are plea negotiations going on in their case and the right to be present for any hearing or sentencing. but alex acosta didn't notify epstein's victims before he granted him that plea deal, the non-prosecution agreement, right? he waited until the whole thing was signed, done and dusted before any of the victims found out about it until it was too late for any of them to do or say anything about it. dozens of victims. no chance to be jekt to that deal. no chance to appear at epstein's sentencing and no chance to tell their stories how his behavior affected their lives. those are all rights afforded to them under the law, not just under commonsense after decency but under the law and they didn't get that. and so two of them sued the government. they didn't sue epstein, they

sued the government. alleging that alex acosta and his team of prosecutors broke federal law when they kept secret from epstein's victims the fact that they gave epstein this non-prosecution deal for all federal crimes. so that lawsuit was filed 11 years ago. yesterday, a federal judge agreed with those victims. a federal judge in southern florida ruled that the current secretary of labor alex acosta in fact broke the law when he negotiated that sweet deal for this serial sex offender and then agreed to keep et seq. rit from epstein's victims. that's astonishing after 11 years. 11 years this has been pending. astonishing turn in this astonishing and incredible case. but now here is the thing and this is something where i actually have no idea how this is going to turn out. despite this ruling from this judge against atost ccososta an

prosecutors, the judge yesterday did not issue a remedy. he said he has found that the prosecutors broke the law but says that now both sides can take 15 days to decide how they wish to proceed figuring out what the remedy ought to be in this case. meanwhile, of course, as we wait out those 15 days, 14 days to see what could be the remedy here, so far alex acosta is still serving as the u.s. secretary of labor. the white house asked repeatedly about this matter said finally today they are quote looking into it but that as far as anybody knows, the president has not lost confidence in his labor secretary. when alex acosta was picked to be in the president's cabinet, he was asked about his handling of the jeffrey epstein case at confirmation hearings. at the time mr. acosta defended the deal, he gave the non-prosecution deal and said the outcome was quote a point of pride. but all this time, it took more

than a decade for their case to get through the federal courts, but all this time that the victims have been seeking this justice. alex acosta has never really explained why he gave jeffrey epstein that deal and never explained why he kept the whole thing a secret. the reporter who broke this story wide open and what changed the course of this case for us for the country will join us next. stay with us. country will join s next stay with us minimums and fees seem to be the foundation of your typical bank. capital one is anything but typical.

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reporter julie k. brown won a polk award for their landmark reporting on the jeffrey epstein case and the efforts by his multiple child sex abuse victims to try to get justice in hi case. to find out how and why federal prosecutors gave jeffrey epstein a secret non-prosecution agreement without ever notifying his victims. now a judge has sided with those victims for the first time that they have -- for the first time in more than the decade that they have been pursuing this matter. julie brown, thank you very much for joining us tonight. congratulations on your coverage of this story thus far. >> thank you. >> i wanted to ask you what you think will be the impact of this judge's ruling yesterday. i was struck by the fact that she's told the two sides in this case to go talk amongst themselves to try to work it out over the course of two weeks to suggest a potential remedy here. what do you think is the range of possibilities? >> well, i know that the victims, the young women who were girls at the time this

happened, i know that what they ultimately would like, and that would be for them to invalidate this agreement and eventually bring him -- get him to federal prison. they feel that he should have been held accountable for this crime, which was -- which involved really, even though prosecutors only listed about three dozen girls over the course of the past 11 years as these cases have. litigated. we know that there are probably over 100 girls. so this -- the vastness of this crime they believe dictates that he should serve some time in federal prison. >> the judge made a point in his ruling yesterday of mentioning that epstein's crimes took place not just in florida but interstate and internationally. do you think that opens the door for other prosecutors in other jurisdictions to bring charges against epstein, prosecutors who might not have considered this

relevant to them, to their own cases before? >> well, certainly the victims' lawyers believe that to be the case. there have been two women that came forward that said that they were trafficked by epstein in new york and in the u.s. virgin islands at his home on his private island, as well as in europe. there's other people who have also given the government evidence over the past i would say five years that indicates that this crime went far beyond florida and even really overseas. >> julie, if you don't mind sticking with us for a little bit. i have one more question i want to ask you about the man who is now labor secretary, alex acosta and the brewing storm. can you stay with us one more segment? >> sure. >> julie k. brown, reporter with "the miami herald" will be right back with us just after this. stay with us. us just after this stay with us self ♪

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that's what inspired us to create america's most advanced internet. internet that puts you in charge. that protects what's important. it handles everything, and reaches everywhere. this is beyond wifi, this is xfi. simple. easy. awesome. xfinity, the future of awesome. yuli k. brown is an award-winning reporter from the "miami herald." she really has broken up the jeffrey epstein child sex abuse case. julie, thanks for staying with us. labor secretary alex acosta was the federal prosecutor leading the epstein case. a federal judge ruled at acosta and his office broke the law when they gave epstein this non-prosecution agreement without ever telling epstein's victims. one of the things i had a hard time following in this steuer is the question of why acosta

offered this plea deal to jeffrey epstein in the first place. he's defended it vaguely. he's called it a point of pride. he's never answered questions as far as i can tell why he kept this deal he did with epstein secret from epstein's victims. do you have any insight into that? do you think this is a knowable thing? >> well, he's given a lot of different reasons over the years. none of them which address the key points, the key things that have disturbed the victims, one of which was the confidential agreement that was designed -- you can see it in the e-mails that they -- that he and out prosecutors passed between epstein's lawyers. it's clear from those e-mails that this whole thing was designed to avoid the victims finding out about it and also to avoid public scrutiny because there was quite a bit of discussion about how do we avoid

the media, you know? we don't want them to find out about this. well, the reason why they don't want the media to find out about it is they didn't want the victims to find out about it and they didn't want people to know how extensive this crime was. the reasons why he did it are still somewhat of a mystery. i think that they didn't think that these girls -- that these were throwaway girls, basically. they came from very poor families. they were young. i think they underestimated, quite frankly, the way the girls were going to handle this over the -- by suing them. >> julie k. brown, reporter for the "miami herald." congratulations again for your work on this story. >> thank you. >> julie, thanks for being here. we'll be right back. we'll be right back. ♪ hey, saved you a seat.

this round is on me. hey, can you spot me? come on in! find your place, today, with silver sneakers... included with many medicare plans. call the number on the screen now or visit getsilversneakers.com one last piece of news for you tonight. it is about that botched congressional election in north carolina where this week there were three days of testimony about a republican political operative's elaborate widespread ballot fraud scheme to help the

republican congressional candidate win. the state elections board has ruled that that election was so tainted they will have a do-over, but now, finally, we are hearing about potential criminal charges in that case as well. the district attorney in north carolina today said she is planning to bring the case to a grand jury. she says she is receiving information that was obtained over the course of the elections board investigation into this matter. she says that she expects to be convening a grand jury to bring potential charges on this matter within the next month. no rush. that does it for us tonight. we'll see you again on monday. now it's time for "the last word" with joy reid filling in for lawrence tonight. good evening, joy. i can see you talking but i can't hear you.