florida and new york city homes until today democrats turned their attention to labor secretary alex accosta, with calls for his resignat on. >> instead prosecuting a predator and serial sex trafficker of children, accosta chose to let him off easy. >> reporter: accosta, a former florida u.s. attorney, cut a widely criticized plea deal with epstein in 2008. em stein avoided federal prosecutiony pleading guilty to state charge including soliciting prostitution from a minor. he registered as a sex offender and spent 13 months injail, but had permission to leave six days a week and work from a local office. incosta comme for the first time since epstein's new york arrest. the crimes committed by epstein are horrific. with the evidence available more than a decade ago, federal prosecutors insisted that epstein go to jail, register as a sex offender. now that new evidence and additional testimony is available, the new york prosecution offers an important opportunity to more fully bring him to justice. >>> but an attorney who says he struck financial settlements with epstein for three alleged vict

today democrats turned their attention to labor secretary alex accosta, with calls for his resignation. >> instead of prosecuting trafficker of children, accosta chose to let him off easta, a f florida u.s. attorney, cut a widely criticized plea deal with epstein in prosecution by pleading to state charges, including soliciting prostitution from a minor. he registered as a sex offender and spent 13 months in jail, but had permission to leave six days a week and work from a local office. accosta commenting for the first time since epstein's new york arrest. the crimes committed by epstein are horrific. with the evidence available more than a decade ago, federal prosecutors insisted that epstein go to jail, register as a sex offender. now that new evidence and additional testimony is available, the new york prosecution offers an important opportunity to more fully bring him to justice. >>> but an attorney who says he struck financial settlements with epstein for three alleged victims holds accosta personally reonl dl. >> mr. accosta's office categorically kept us in the dark. they failed

as stephanie reported, there are growing calls for alex accosta to resign as labor secretary and tonight president trump is weighing in. nbc's peter alexander has that part of the story from the white house. >> reporter: despite those calls for alex accosta's resignation, tonight president trump is praising him >> i can tell you that for 2 1/2 years he's been just an excellent secretary of labor. he's done a fantastic job. >> reporter: the president says he first met accosta when he nominated him in 2017, years after accosta worked on that controversial plea deal for billionaire jeffrey epstein. now president trump says his administration will examine accosta's handling of that case. >> i feel very badly, actually, for secretary accosta. i know him as somebody who has worked hard and done a good job i feel badly about that situation, but we're going to be looking at that and looking at it very closely. >> reporter: but the white house had already announced last march that accosta's role as u.s. attorney in epstein's plea deal was under review, though no update has been provided in the mo

attorney alex accosta who is now the labor secretary in a new tweet, house speaker nancy pelosi called on accosta to step down saying his agreement with epstein was unconscionable nbc's stephanie gosk has more. >> reporter: good morning, marlie well, jeffrey except stein has pleaded not guilty to the charges. he's hoping to get out of jail on bail but not if federal prosecutors have their way they are saying that he be detained until his trial billionaire hedge fund manager, socialite accused sex trafficker >> the alleged behavior shocks the conscience >> reporter: federal prosecutors say jeffrey epsteis young as 14o 2005 at his estate in palm beach, florida, and mansion in new york city, where according to court documents the fbi seized a vast trove of lewd photographs of young looking women or girls during a search over the weekend hundreds and perhaps thousands of sexually suggestive photographers. epstein was arrested on saturday when his private jet landed from paris. he was charged with sex trafficking and conspiracy to traffic minors for the purpose of sex victims were initially

but this is a man who got that sweetheart deal from alex accosta. now the house oversight committee wants accosta to testify about that deal. i'm going to talk to a member of the committee later on in this show. but speaker nancy pelosi's mind made up. this, this latest example of white house chaos, 2020 is looming right now, and democrats vying for the chance to go up against the president, they're battling to break away from the crowded field. they'll go head to head to head in our two-night cnn presidential debates. dana bash, jake tapper and i will moderate. july 30th and 31st live from detroit. and a lot of those candidates who are trying to breakthrough with black voters are stopping by radios of breakfast club to sit down with charlamagne tha god. he has a lot of fascinating things to say about the campaign and candidates. if you don't know him, you should. we've got a great conversation coming up, and i asked him how his show is different. >> i actually think that they were coming to our show because they thought that they could just get over

secret deal, brokered by now labor secretary alex accosta, gave a multi-millionaire sex offender a lightt all masks something that should concern all of us a lot more. this is about something that's happening all over this country to our kids. this is about human trafficking and sex against someone's will, the grooming, manipulation, and abuse of children. just today we heard from yet another accuser, jennifer arose. she says that she was recruited for epstein when she was just 14, raped by him at 15. >> he knew very well my age. he knew exactly, you know, who he was hanging out with. i was telling him to stop, please stop, you know. >> and did he? >> no, he did not stop. he had no intention of stopping, and that's what he wanted. that's what he got. i just thought, like, you know, it's my fault, like i was, like, obligated, like that's just what you're supposed to do. so i really didn't know better. >> didn't know better. obligated. that's what i was supposed to do. i have heard those words and these types of stories firsthand all over the country. i've driven the streets with my team t

accosta. >> and was an identified minor at the time. >> correct. >> one of the things alex acosta said several times is prosecutors will often take a deal over the roll of the dice of the trial. but what james patterson wrote about in a book and what julie reported on, are pieces of evidence that unless you had as a prosecutor reason to believe that the witnesses were unreliable and the victims were unreliable, which may have been the case, it may have been what motivated alex acosta. why not pursue a case that would result in a more serious sentence than what ended up happening? >> yeah. and he used the term "roll the dice." and that is a term that trial lawyers use because you never know what a juror might do. these cases are difficult, especially if you have child witnesses that you're going to have to rely on. you don't want to have to revictimize them. so taking a sure thing plea does have value. but if you've got evidence of child pornography with a 15-year mandatory minimum, that's a great backstop count to include in your case. and often times what you see is charging the riskier charg