The American Prospect says it has obtained thousands of heavily redacted pages of documents related to the New Mexico attorney general’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, which began in 2019 under then-Attorney General Hector Balderas.
The investigation involved Epstein’s sprawling New Mexico ranch, which The New York Times reports Epstein intended to use as an insemination farm to create his offspring. The ranch was sold for an undisclosed sum in 2023.
The documents include media reports, land records, flight logs, court documents, and interviews with witnesses to Epstein’s crimes related to Epstein’s 8,000-acre “Zorro Ranch,” where accusers claim they were assaulted.
“Land records and letters included in the tranche also claim that New Mexico’s state land office improperly awarded public land to Epstein, and then failed to monitor the public land that was leased at a discount to the disgraced financier,” reports American Prospect reporter Daniel Boguslaw.
The documents also show that New Mexico state investigators also traveled to other states to investigate allegations lodged against Epstein before President Donald Trump’s federal Department of Justice shut down the New Mexico investigation to pursue Epstein’s prosecution in New York.
Documents obtained by the Prospect are heavily redacted “for embarrassing or politically volatile information” under Section 14-2-1(D) of the state public records act, but clues to what’s contained appears in a letter sent from Balderas to Maurene Comey in September of 2019. Police reports, witness statements, and internal state correspondence are almost entirely redacted.
Democrats hold a trifecta in Arizona government, with majorities in both chambers of the legislature and in the governor’s office. They also hold the attorney general’s office and the secretary of state, which the Prospect reports gives “them a broad mandate to subpoena state agencies and individuals for information, and compel the U.S. attorney general Pam Bondi to publicly disclose “what is currently redacted beyond comprehension.”
Additionally, the Prospect reports New Mexico state Rep. Andrea Romero (D-Santa Fe) plans to introduce legislation to form a “truth commission” that can use subpoenas to uncover the full scope of what transpired at the Zorro Ranch.
“The first point of the commission is to tell the truth about what went on so that we know what we can do to remedy these situations,” Romero told KOAT 7.
Read the full American Prospect report at this link.