New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez has accused Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's Justice Department of obstructing the state's investigation into Zorro Ranch, the property south of Santa Fe where Jeffrey Epstein spent years and where state prosecutors believe crimes occurred.
Torrez asked the department for unredacted records in February. He followed up five times. The department, he says, kept the records redacted or withheld them despite assurances it would comply. On July 9, 2026, he made his letter public after receiving no response.
“Every day that the U.S. D.O.J. withholds these records, the foundation upon which a New Mexico prosecution could be built erodes,” Torrez wrote. Redactions, he argued, do not merely slow an investigation; they end it: “Every avenue of investigation that begins with a redacted name, a blacked-out face or an obscured date is an avenue that ends before it begins.”
There is precedent for the pattern. In 2019, federal prosecutors asked New Mexico authorities to hold off on their own investigation, saying the Justice Department was pursuing one. That federal investigation never materialized. The ranch was never fully searched. Seven years later, the same department is again the obstacle between state prosecutors and the evidence, this time under an acting attorney general who has repeatedly insisted the government is not sitting on Epstein material (see Lawyer Katie Phang Sues Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for Withholding 2.5 Million Pages of Epstein Files Required to Be Released by an Act of Congress and Acting AG Blanche Claims 'All' Epstein Files Have Been Released. The DOJ's Own Records Show Only 50%.).