Alexander Acosta, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida who negotiated a plea deal in 2008 with Jeffrey Epstein, testified before the House Oversight Committee on Friday, with the committee's chair saying he "cooperated."

       Acosta, who served as the Labor Secretary during the first Trump administration, testified for roughly six hours.

       Acosta resigned his position at the Labor Department after more than two years in the job amid controversy over his role in the 2008 plea deal with Epstein. At the time, he defended his decision, saying his goal "was straightforward" and included putting Epstein behind bars.

       With continued interest in the Epstein matter on Capitol Hill, Acosta now finds himself testifying at a closed-door deposition.

       Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said Acosta "cooperated with our questions today and provided information that will help advance our investigation into the federal government's handling of the Epstein and Maxwell cases."

       "This information will guide our next steps as we work to bring accountability, and we expect to announce new action soon. We will also release the transcript of Mr. Acosta's interview to ensure transparency for the American people," Comer said in a statement.

       Comer, who spoke to reporters at a break in the interview, said the committee is working to get more answers.

       "We're trying to find out more. Who dropped the ball? Was it Acosta? Was it the FBI? Was it the local prosecutors? Was it the Department of Justice? Those are the questions I think we need to know, because that was part of what the victims asked us to do," Comer added.

       House Democrats on the Oversight Committee said that during the ongoing closed interview, Acosta would "not admit that Jeffrey Epstein received a sweetheart deal."

       Ranking Member Robert Garcia said Acosta would not "claim any responsibility" to the Epstein survivors, adding "he had no knowledge of what happened to those victims, even to this day."

       While this is the first time Acosta will be questioned by Congress about the Epstein deal, his actions and decisions during the investigation in Florida beginning in 2005, and the resulting non-prosecution agreement (NPA), have already received considerable scrutiny.

       A lawsuit against the Justice Department, in which Epstein's victims challenged the legality of the NPA, exposed much of the correspondence between Epstein's lawyers and prosecutors in advance of the negotiated plea. Acosta himself spoke extensively about the deal at a press conference in 2019, before his resignation from his post as Labor Secretary. And a Justice Department Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) investigation in 2020 -- for which Acosta provided sworn testimony -- examined in detail the decisions made by Acosta and his top deputies in the course of negotiations with Epstein's lawyers.

       Acosta has long defended his decision to enter into plea negotiations with Epstein as the best path forward at the time. His office and the FBI had picked up the case -- which involved allegations of sexual exploitation of dozens of minor girls -- after the Town of Palm Beach Police Chief expressed outrage at the way the case was being handled by the state prosecutor, who had presented the case to a grand jury, returning a single count indictment against Epstein for solicitation of prostitution.

       "The goal here was straightforward," Acosta said in July 2019, four days after Epstein was arrested in New York on child sex-trafficking charges. "Put Epstein behind bars, ensure he registered as a sexual offender, provide victims with a means to seek restitution, and protect the public by putting them on notice that a sexual predator was within their midst."

       Still, the congressional committee's investigators are expected to press Acosta on a number of fronts, particularly on his decision to enter into plea negotiations in the summer of 2007, while a 60-count draft federal indictment against Epstein was gathering dust in the office of the lead prosecutor on the case. The negotiations and resulting plea deal also occurred, according to the OPR report, while the FBI and Acosta's prosecutors were still investigating the case and identifying new victims in other jurisdictions. The deal was also signed before the FBI or prosecutors had made any concerted effort to try to gain the cooperation of Epstein's alleged co-conspirators, according to the report.

       The OPR report called it "troubling" that Acosta decided to resolve that case through a negotiated plea before the investigation was completed.

       "As the investigation progressed, the FBI continued to locate additional victims, and many had not been interviewed by the FBI by the time of the initial offer. In other words, at the time of Acosta's decision, the [government] did not know the full scope of Epstein's conduct; whether, given Epstein's other domestic and foreign residences, his criminal conduct had occurred in other locations; or whether the additional victims might implicate other offenders," the report said.

       Acosta is also likely to face questions on repeated meetings and consultations he and his top deputies engaged in with Epstein's high-powered legal team, several of whom previously work as federal prosecutors in the same office in Miami and others who previously worked with Acosta at a white-shoe law firm.

       According to the Justice Department's OPR report, the line prosecutor, A. Marie Villafa？a, objected to the access that was being granted by the office to Epstein's defense counsel.

       "As the lead prosecutor, Villafa？a vehemently opposed meeting with Epstein's attorneys and voiced her concerns to her supervisors, but was overruled by them," the report said, noting that senior prosecutors viewed the meetings as primarily "listening sessions" that could be helpful for learning how the defense intended to attack the credibility of certain witnesses and perceived weaknesses in the case.

       Villafa？a said she feared her office was "going down the same path" the state of Florida had gone down in allowing Epstein's defense attorneys to persuade prosecutors not to file serious charges, and she feared the delays might allow Epstein to continue to offend, the report said. Villafa？a told OPR she believed Acosta was "influenced by the stature of Epstein's attorneys" and that the defense lawyers convinced some members of the prosecution team that the case was "extremely novel and legally complex."

       "It was not as legally complex as they made it out to be," Villafa？a told OPR.

       After examining the scope of the relationships, OPR said it could not "rule out the possibility" that prosecutors may have been willing to meet with Epstein's lawyers because they knew them, but concluded "OPR did not find evidence supporting a conclusion that the meetings themselves resulted in any substantial benefit to the defense."

       Ultimately, the OPR report found that Acosta had exercised "poor judgment" in making the deal with Epstein, but found that neither Acosta nor any of the prosecutors in the office had committed professional misconduct or had violated any clear and unambiguous rules of the DOJ. At the time the OPR was made public in 2020, attorneys for Epstein's victims called the report "offensive" and a "whitewash."

       Acosta's interview with the committee Friday will be under oath and his testimony will be transcribed. The committee is expected to make the transcript public in the coming weeks.