U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended his Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, who is under pressure from Democrats to resign over his handling of a decade-old sex abuse case against financier Jeffrey Epstein, but said he, too, would look into it.

Federal sex trafficking charges were brought against Epstein on Monday, raising new questions about Acosta’s handling of a related case in Florida in 2008. Federal prosecutors including Acosta reached a plea deal with Epstein that has since come under scrutiny as being too lenient.

Top Democratic lawmakers and many Democratic candidates vying to run against Trump in the 2020 presidential election called for Acosta to step down.

“I feel very badly actually for Secretary Acosta because I’ve known him as being somebody that works so hard and has done such a good job,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I feel very badly about that whole situation. But we’re going to be looking at that, and looking at it very closely.”

It was not the first time that Trump has defended a Cabinet member casting a shadow on his administration. Trump stuck by his former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, and his former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, in the face of months of investigations into spending and expenses. Both men eventually left the cabinet.

Trump made no reference to the crimes that Epstein is charged with or the victims who have come forward. He said he knew the financier, but had a “falling out” with him long ago and they have not spoken in 15 years. Trump did not comment on what the disagreement was about.

He said Acosta had been an “excellent” secretary of labor and that he thought there were many others involved in the decisions involving the earlier Epstein case. And, he added, “you’re talking about a long time ago.” Read more

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