U.S. Attorney General William Barr testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee May 1, 2019 in Washington, DC. Barr testified on the Justice Department's investigation of Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election.

Attorney General William Barr will not recuse himself from involvement in the new federal criminal prosecution of accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, an official said Tuesday.

But Barr will recuse himself from an internal Justice Department probe of current Labor Secretary Alex Acosta's involvement in approving a controversial no-prosecution deal with the wealthy financier a decade ago, an official said.

Barr's announced decision to have oversight of the Epstein prosecution came after reports that he had recused himself from the case, which is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

And it came as a bevy of Democratic members of Congress and presidential candidates demanded that Acosta resign because of his role as then-U.S. attorney in Miami in signing off on a deal to not prosecute Epstein in the mid-2000s.

Epstein, 66, is accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls from 2002 to 2005 after they were brought to his luxurious residences on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and in Palm Beach, Florida, under the pretext of giving him massages.

The former friend of President Donald Trump and ex-President Bill Clinton pleaded not guilty on Monday, and is being held without bail pending a detention hearing next week.

Epstein was being eyed for the same alleged conduct in Florida that federal prosecutors have now charged him with in Manhattan.

A Justice Department official on Tuesday said that Barr consulted with career ethics officials at the department, and concluded he did not have to recuse himself from the current prosecution in Manhattan.

However, Barr was quoted Monday as saying he was recusing himself from the Epstein case.