HOLY FOCK!!! THE NMDOJ *JUST SUED* THE DOJ FOR INTERFERENCE WITH THEIR EPSTEIN INVESTIGATIONS! I HAVE THE COMPLAINT IN FRONT OF ME!
by Anne P. Mitchell, Esq. – attorney, law professor emeritus, and author of Federal law
As I mentioned in my livestream broadcast last night when I broke this news to my audience, the New Mexico Department of Justice (NMDOJ) has *just sued* Blanche’s DOJ, along with Blanche himself, over the DOJ’s ongoing stonewalling and failure to turn over documents and evidence related to Jeffrey Epstein and crimes he and his cohort committed in New Mexico, including at Zorro Ranch. (The full 40-page Complaint is included for Notes from the Front members.)
While it is not unheard of, albeit very rare, for a state DOJ to sue the Federal DOJ, it is *wholly unprecedented* in *this* particular context!
And here is the context:
In 2019 both the USDOJ Southern District of New York (SDNY) and the NMDOJ were investigating Epstein. The NMDOJ had opened their investigation into Zorro Ranch in February of 2019.
In July of 2019, a couple of weeks after Epstein was arrested, the SDNY asked the NMDOJ to back the fuc.. er.. I mean, to suspend New Mexico’s investigation because the SDNY wanted to complete their investigation first. In return for the NMDOJ putting their investigations on hold – which meant *foregoing* interviewing victims, interviewing witnesses, investigating evidence, etc. – the SDNY *promised* the NMDOJ that they wouldn’t cu..er.. I mean that the USDOJ would cooperate with the NMDOJ’s subsequent investigations.
Now, lest you haven’t done the math, let me remind you who was in office in 2019: it was Trump. And while Trump’s first DOJ wasn’t quite so untrustworthy, it was still, well, Trump’s DOJ. And who was the attorney general at that time? That’s right, Bill Barr.
There is a handwritten note memorializing this agreement, it says “Agreed NMAG will stop interviews & refer all matters to SDNY — SDNY will refer any state-related matter to NMAG @ conclusion of SDNY case” (That handwritten note included for Notes from the Front members)
It is unknown who in SDNY wrote that note memorializing the agreement, but as U.S. Attorneys Maurene Comey and Alison Moe were the ones working on the case it was likely one of them.
(Side note: Odds are good that Maurene Comey, daughter of James Comey, will be thrown under the bus on this one.)
So far we have the USDOJ promising to cooperate with and share what they find with respect to evidence of trafficking and other Epstein-related crimes in New Mexico, and then reneging on their promise. In fact the USDOJ has decidedly *not* “referred any state-related matter to NMAG @ conclusion of SDNY case”; rather they have *stonewalled* the NMDOJ at every turn, hence this lawsuit.
But wait, there’s more.
The NMDOJ *repeatedly asked* the USDOJ to *seize* Zorro Ranch as a crime scene! Multiple times!
Instead, Zorro Ranch remained a private property, and was sold by Epstein’s estate to multi-millionaire Don Huffines in 2023.
Yet the SDNY / USDOJ *knew* that crimes had been committed at Zorro Ranch. It was proven by the SDNY’s own court records! During Maxwell’s trial, under questioning *by a USDOJ attorney*, a victim described being abused at Zorro Ranch while she was a minor.
In February of this year, 2026, the NMDOJ started requesting the promised information and records from, and cooperation with, the USDOJ. And that’s when the stonewalling began.
The NMDOJ’s requests went unanswered. Then they had a phone call with USDOJ who told the NMDOJ that they had to essentially go through a chain of command, filing a *formal* request with the USDOJ’s New Mexico office. (Note that it is very common for law enforcement agencies to cooperate informally, and indeed that had been the NMDOJ relationship with the USDOJ for decades.)
This formal request is known as a “Touhy” request, so-named for the case of Touhy v. Ragen, which was decided way back in 1951. A Touhy request is basically a formal letter of request to a federal agency for documents and other records.
So the NMDOJ submitted their formal Touhy requests.
And the SDNY / USDOJ continued to stonewall.
THEN the SDNY / USDOJ said that they *couldn’t* comply with the requests for unredacted records because of the various protective orders in place “to protect the victims”.
As we have seen elsewhere, they are using “protection of the victims” to deny document requests. And, that doesn’t even make sense, because the NMDOJ is a *law enforcement* agency, so there should be *no barrier* to sharing unredacted documents with them.
So the NMDOJ asked the SDNY / USDOJ if they would cooperate with NMDOJ to seek a modification of those protective orders, and Deputy U.S. Attorney Sean Buckley said, and I quote, “unlikely”, adding that there was likely “no path through which NMDOJ could work with USDOJ on these matters.”
(Taking a beat to allow our blood to stop boiling.)
And so the NMDOJ just filed this lawsuit to *force* the USDOJ to fork over the the records.
There is of course quite a bit more in the Complaint (again, included for Notes from the Front members); I recommend that you have your favourite calming beverage at hand as you read it.
Notes from the Front members: The full 40-page Complaint, and the handwritten note, are in your inbox now.
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P.S. If you actually read all the way to the bottom please leave a sentence in a comment that includes the word “beverage”. It will show me that my efforts aren’t in vain and that people actually *do* read these things, and it will drive those who just skim crazy wondering just why everyone is talking about beverages! ;~)
(The above was provided by me, Anne P. Mitchell, Esq. – attorney and law professor emeritus.)
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