Post-Mortem: The Alex Acosta OIG Interview — Anatomy of a Whitewash (1/22/26)

The Alex Acosta interview with the DOJ Office of the Inspector General was not a genuine act of oversight but a carefully managed exercise in institutional self-protection. From the outset, the OIG accepted Acosta’s framing that the Epstein deal was inherited, constrained, and unavoidable, rather than interrogating his clear authority as U.S. Attorney to reject or dismantle it. Extraordinary features of the agreement—blanket immunity, secrecy, victim exclusion, and shielding of unnamed co-conspirators—were treated as unfortunate byproducts instead of deliberate choices. The interview avoided probing motive, power, ambition, or external influence, and allowed “complexity” to substitute for accountabi...