Alexander Acosta

Acosta authorized federal intervention in an Oklahoma religious liberties case to help assure the right to wear hijab in public school, and worked with Mississippi authorities to reopen the investigation of the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black youth whose abduction and murder helped spark the civil rights movement.

He was the first Hispanic to serve as Assistant Attorney General.

While leading the Civil Rights division, Acosta allowed his predecessor, Bradley Schlozman, to continue to make decisions on hiring.

A report by the inspector general and the Office of Professional Responsibility later found that Schlozman illegally gave preferential treatment to conservatives and made false statements to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Those findings were relayed to the office of the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, but Schlozman was not prosecuted.

While it put the primary responsibility on Schlozman, the report also concluded that Acosta "did not sufficiently supervise Schlozman" and that "in light of indications [he and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Sheldon Bradshaw] had about Schlozman's conduct and judgment, they failed to ensure that Schlozman's hiring and personnel decisions were based on proper considerations."

Rene Alexander Acosta (born January 16, 1969) is an American attorney and politician, who served as the 27th United States Secretary of Labor from 2017 to 2019.

President Donald Trump nominated Acosta to be Labor Secretary on, and he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on.

Acosta received a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Harvard College in 1990, and received a Juris Doctor degree cum laude from Harvard Law School 1994.

He is the first member of his family to graduate from college.

Following law school, Acosta served as a law clerk to Samuel Alito, then a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, from 1994 to 1995.

Acosta then worked at the office of the law firm Kirkland & Ellis in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in employment and labor issues.

While in Washington, Acosta taught classes on employment law, disability-based discrimination law, and civil rights law at the George Mason University School of Law.

From December 2001 to December 2002, he served as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

From December 2002 to August 2003, he was a member of the National Labor Relations Board for which he participated in or authored more than 125 opinions.

Then, he became Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division on August 22, 2003, where he was known for increasing federal prosecutions against human trafficking.

In 2005, Acosta was appointed as the U.S. attorney for Southern District of Florida, where his office successfully prosecuted the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the terrorism suspect José Padilla, the founders of the Cali Cartel, and Charles McArther Emmanuel, the son of Liberia's former leader.

The district also targeted white collar crime, prosecuting several bank-related cases, including one against Swiss bank UBS.

The case resulted in UBS paying $780 million in fines, and for the first time in history, the bank provided the United States with the names of individuals who were using secret Swiss bank accounts to avoid U.S. federal income taxes.

Other notable cases during his tenure include the corruption prosecution of Palm Beach County Commission chairman Tony Masilotti, Palm Beach County commissioner Warren Newell, Palm Beach County commissioner Mary McCarty, and Broward sheriff Ken Jenne; the conviction of Cali Cartel founders Miguel and Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, for the importation of 200,000 kilos of cocaine, which resulted in a $2.1 billion forfeiture; and the white-collar crime prosecutions of executives connected to Hamilton Bank.

Acosta also emphasized health care fraud prosecutions.

Under Acosta's leadership the district prosecuted more than 700 individuals, responsible for a total of more than $2 billion in Medicare fraud.

In March 2005, the Palm Beach Police Department began a 13-month undercover investigation of Epstein, including a search of his home, based on reports that he was involved with sex trafficking of minors.

In 2007–2008, as U.S. attorney, Acosta approved a plea deal that allowed child-trafficking ring-leader Jeffrey Epstein to plead guilty to a single state charge of solicitation, in exchange for a federal non-prosecution agreement.

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation resulted in a 53-page indictment in June 2007.

Acosta, then the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, agreed to a plea deal, to grant immunity from all federal criminal charges to Epstein, along with four named co-conspirators and any unnamed "potential co-conspirators".

That agreement "essentially shut down an ongoing FBI probe into whether there were more victims and other powerful people who took part in Epstein's sex crimes".

In 2008, U.S. attorney Acosta approved a federal non-prosecution agreement with Jeffrey Epstein.

That secret agreement, conducted without consulting the victims, was later ruled illegal by a federal judge for violating the Crime Victims' Rights Act.

On December 31, 2013, Acosta became the new chairman of U.S. Century Bank, the largest domestically owned Hispanic community bank in Florida and one of the 15 largest Hispanic community banks in the country.

During his tenure as chairman, U.S. Century Bank had its first year-end profit since the start of the Great Recession.

Acosta was a member of the Board of Trustees of Gulliver Schools, where he served a past term as board chairman.

Acosta served in four presidentially appointed, U.S. Senate-confirmed positions in the George W. Bush administration.

He left the position in shame in 2019.

A member of the Republican Party, he was appointed by President George W. Bush to the National Labor Relations Board, and later served as the assistant attorney general for civil rights and the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida.

He is a former dean of Florida International University College of Law.

He has twice been named on the ‘50 most important Hispanics’ list by Hispanic Business Magazine.

After Epstein's arrest in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges, Acosta faced renewed and harsher criticism for his role in the 2008 non-prosecution agreement, as well as criticism and calls for his resignation; he resigned on July 19 and was replaced by Eugene Scalia.

Acosta is the only son of Cuban immigrants.

He is a native of Miami, Florida, where he attended the Gulliver Schools.