Acosta should not be the only one to resign

Labor Secretary Alex Acosta has resigned. Why not Senators John Barrasso and Mike Enzi who voted to confirm him knowing that as the U.S. Attorney,  Acosta gave special treatment to a man who sexually abused little girls, a friend of Donald Trump, who described this sex offender as a “friend” who just happened to like ‘em young? Yuck.

Wyoming’s senators knew that when they towed the Trump-McConnell line and voted to give Acosta one of the highest offices of the land.

I understand partisanship. I understand decency. I don’t understand politicians who choose partisanship over decency. I’m old enough to remember the Republican Party claim to be the party of family values. Now, it’s the “full Monty” party of Trump.

As Labor Secretary, Acosta was charged with fighting human sex trafficking. As a U.S. Attorney, Acosta illegally gave sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein “the deal of a lifetime,” a plea bargain not regularly available to serial sex-trafficking pedophiles who are not well-connected billionaires.

The obligation of senators to advise the president on cabinet selections and to give their consent is so significant that it is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Read Article 2, Section2.

“He (the president) shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States.”

Senators Barrasso and Enzi have a Constitutional duty to make sure the president appoints qualified people to high-ranking government positions. That duty has seldom been so important as in the era of a president excited to appoint unqualified, unethical cronies to critical government jobs.

The senate’s confirmation power is the thin “red, white, and blue” line standing between Trump and his wont to repopulate the swamp.

Trump’s first choice for Labor Secretary was a disaster. His financial disclosure showed he was unworthy and couldn’t even get past a GOP senate. Trump turned to a man who coddled a child sex rapist.

I was once a defense lawyer. My experience was that prosecutors were anxious to give the maximum possible sentence to sex offenders. They held press conferences, talking about “throwing the book at them” especially when they were accused of raping children. Imagine everyone’s surprise when Florida’s U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta bent over backwards to make sure this billionaire pedophile served as little jail time as possible while given work release so that 6 days a week he could leave the jail to go to his plush office.

Proof that it was a corrupt choice is found in how Acosta kept it secret in violation of Florida laws protecting victims’ rights. A federal court reviewed Acosta’s sweetheart deal with Epstein, ruling Trump’s Labor Secretary violated the law and the rights of the victims.

Wyoming’s senators knew all this when they voted the Republican line to confirm this sex-offender coddler to be a member of Trump’s cabinet. Is Acosta the only one to pay a  price for this outrage?

Giving a cabinet appointee the responsibility for investigating and prosecuting sex trade is, need it be said, important. Human trafficking is trade in human bodies for the purpose of forced labor, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others.

Epstein’s victims were the same age as your 13-16-year-old daughters. Why didn’t Senators Enzi and Barrasso care about those little girls? Why don’t you?

Many of you ignore the president’s sexual immorality. It was okay with you when he paid hush money to silence women he slept with even as his newborn baby son lay in the crib.

In the hyper-partisanship of the times, have we lost our capacity to see the horror visited on these little girls? Politicians like Enzi and Barrasso see them only as impediments to another political win.  

These little girls were somebody’s daughters. Do they have to be yours before you give a damn?