The US Labour Secretary Alexander Acosta is facing renewed calls for his resignation over the lenient 2008 plea deal he cut with Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire financier who this week was charged with operating a sex trafficking ring involving girls as young as 14. According to a report in The Guardian, Acosta is coming under a blizzard of calls from senior Democrats to step down or face fresh congressional scrutiny over the unusual deal he struck with Epstein while serving as Miami’s top federal prosecutor 11 years ago. As the federal prosecutor leading the case in 2008, Acosta oversaw a plea deal in which Epstein was granted a highly unusual non-prosecution agreement that shielded him from all federal criminal charges relating to his more than 30 incidents of potential abuse of underaged girls. Under the deal, the FBI probe that had already culminated in a 53-page draft indictment was shut down in favor of Epstein pleading guilty to two lesser state charges that controversially labelled his victims as prostitutes. Tim Kaine, the Virginia senator who was Hillary Clinton’s running mate in the 2016 presidential election, said bluntly on Twitter: ‘Acosta must go. He handed a sweetheart deal to a serial sexual predator.’