Amid Blanche Confirmation Battle, NM Sues DOJ for Access to Epstein Docs

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Before the Senate votes on Todd Blanche’s nomination to become attorney general, he should really explain his conduct related to the case of Jeffrey Epstein. When you consider that he seems to side at every turn with Donald Trump — who used to pal around with the disgraced financier and whose name is mentioned throughout the documents the administration was forced to release — instead of with Epstein’s victims, the halting and sloppy release of those files, and his secretive meeting with co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, there are a lot of questions to be answered.

And since Senate Republicans don’t want to ask any of them, New Mexico is trying something else: It is suing the Department of Justice (DOJ) for access to unredacted documents that could shed light on crimes Epstein committed at his Zorro Ranch in the state.

The lawsuit accuses Blanche, who currently serves as acting attorney general, as well as others in DOJ, of “stonewalling” an investigation into the conduct of Epstein and others at that property near Santa Fe.

“[DOJ] has betrayed survivors and the public related to Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators at least three times,” it states, including when the federal government negotiated a non-prosecution agreement with the sexual predator and then again when it revealed unredacted information about abuse victims when it released the files following the passage of the disclosure law.

“Now, [DOJ] and Acting Attorney General Blanche are refusing to facilitate the investigation of state law crimes by hiding information about Epstein and his co-conspirators from [New Mexico] Attorney General [Raúl] Torrez and state law enforcement, when New Mexico is one of few jurisdictions that still may have an opportunity to hold Epstein’s associates accountable or otherwise provide some sense of justice to survivors,” the lawsuit states.

As WhoWhatWhy reported, Torrez recently gave DOJ a deadline until the end of July to produce the documents and accused the department of deliberately stalling his probe. At the time, he detailed all of the ways in which the department had stalled and noted that the gap between its “public posture and its actual conduct is remarkable.”

Since DOJ did not comply with the request, the lawsuit is seeking a court to step in and either compel the Trump administration to release the documents or to provide a good-faith justification why it won’t.

“New Mexico has a duty to protect survivors and investigate crimes committed in our state so that perpetrators can be held accountable,” Torrez stated, adding that the “delay is actively hurting our criminal investigation and delaying justice Epstein survivors deserve.”

Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that this matter will be resolved before Blanche’s confirmation vote. However, the few Republican senators who are on the fence about whether they should confirm someone beholden to the president instead of the American people or the cause of justice would do well to look into this case.

And then they should ask themselves which side they want to be on.