Hi there, everyone. It is 4 o'clock here in New York. I'm Alicia Menendez in for Nicole Wallace,

in the middle of a pivotal day on Capitol Hill for the probe into the government's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case.

At this hour, the House Oversight Committee,

they are still in their closed-door meeting with Alex Acosta, the former U.S. attorney for the

Southern District of Florida, and Donald Trump's former Labor Secretary. Now, you'll recall,

Acosta led the negotiation of that highly controversial 2008 plea deal that shielded Epstein from any federal charges.

The agreement allowed Epstein to plead guilty to state charges involving one underage

victim, gave him generous work release privileges while he served just over a year in prison.

According to Blockbuster reporting from the Miami Herald's Julie K. Brown in 2018,

that helped lead to Epstein's 2019 federal indictment, quote, Acosta allowed Epstein's

lawyers unusual freedoms in dictating the terms of the non-prosecution agreement. As a result,

neither the victims nor even the judge would know how many girls

Epstein allegedly sexually abused between 2001 and 2005 when his underage sex activities

were first uncovered by police. There are so many gaps that Acosta's testimony could fill in.

For example, why was this sweetheart deal kept hidden from

victims? But here's how Democrats on the committee described how Acosta's interview was going

earlier today. He seems to be pretty dug in on the decisions that he made. And unfortunately,

I heard things that disturbed me such as, well, back in 2006,

it was a different time. And it seemed as if we were going back to a little bit of victim shaming

and believing that, well, nobody's going to believe these girls or these women.

Essentially said he didn't have faith in the victims, their stories, and their ability to tell their own story and their own testimony, which is deeply disturbing.

One of the survivors that was there was very clear that she was abused, an assaulted and raped by Jeffrey Epstein during his work release. And during that time

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