[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 114 (Tuesday, July 9, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H5289-H5290]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CALLING FOR THE RESIGNATION OF LABOR SECRETARY ALEXANDER ACOSTA
(Mr. PAYNE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Speaker, serial sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein has been
arrested again. Federal prosecutors have charged him with running a sex
trafficking ring where he paid to have sex with girls as young as 14
years old.
More than that, officials said Epstein's abuse happened between 2002
and 2005, 3 years before he received a sweetheart deal to spend a mere
18 months in prison and avoid Federal trial for sexual abuse of 36
underaged girls.
The prosecutor who made that deal is our current Secretary of Labor,
Alexander Acosta.
That is why I am calling for Secretary Acosta to resign. His actions
in the Epstein case prove that he prefers to protect sex offenders over
teenage abuse victims.
He prefers to protect millionaire criminals over the common man, so
how can we trust him to protect millions of American workers from
corporate abuse when he clearly supports the abusers? We can't.
That is why he needs to resign. Then, we can let the FBI conduct a
thorough investigation of his actions to ensure that nothing like this
ever happens again.
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