New Mexico has dragged the Justice Department into federal court over records tied to Jeffrey Epstein’s former Zorro Ranch.
The lawsuit names Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and accuses federal officials of blocking the state’s active criminal investigation by withholding unredacted files.
Those are serious allegations.
They are also allegations the Justice Department disputes, citing victim privacy, court orders and federal law.
Now a judge may have to decide whether those explanations justify keeping the requested evidence out of state investigators’ hands.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez laid out his accusation in a television interview Wednesday evening:
New Mexico sued the Trump administration on Wednesday to obtain unredacted access to the Jeffrey Epstein files that have not been publicly disclosed as part of its criminal investigation into Epstein’s former Zorro Ranch.
“All we have received from the Department of Justice, despite public assurances of cooperation, is stonewalling and obstruction,” New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez tells CBS News’ Major Garrett.
— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 5, 2026
Associated Press reports that New Mexico filed its complaint Wednesday in federal court in Washington, D.C., seeking judicial intervention that would force the Justice Department to provide materials relevant to the state’s investigation. The complaint alleges that Blanche and the department imposed formal-request requirements, then rejected the requests after New Mexico complied, leaving investigators without records they say could identify survivors, witnesses, co-conspirators and additional criminal conduct.
The federal response is important. DOJ says it remains willing to assist New Mexico in a manner consistent with binding court orders and federal law, and it argues that victim privacy limits the release of unredacted records.
New Mexico counters that federal disclosures have already exposed some survivor information while still concealing material the state needs for law enforcement purposes. The lawsuit puts those competing claims before a judge rather than leaving them trapped in dueling press statements.
Epstein purchased the sprawling ranch south of Santa Fe in 1993.
Testimony during Ghislaine Maxwell’s federal trial included allegations that women were sexually abused at the New Mexico property.
Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence after her 2021 sex-trafficking conviction.
Epstein died in federal custody in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
The central question now is not whether Epstein was a monster.
It is whether other people can still be identified and held accountable for crimes connected to the ranch.
One current post highlighted the scale of the material New Mexico says remains obscured:
New Mexico sued the Justice Department Wednesday to pry loose the unredacted Epstein files on Zorro Ranch, the 7,600-acre spread he owned near Santa Fe.
The files that are already public carry more than 13,000 references to that ranch. The exact documents state prosecutors asked for are still blacked out.
The man who won’t hand them over is Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer, now acting AG and up for Senate confirmation to keep the job.
Torrez says Blanche could grant access “with a stroke of a pen.” Instead “they have decided to stonewall, to obstruct and to frankly conceal.”
— IredcapI (@IredcapI) August 5, 2026
New Mexico did not begin asking for these records yesterday.
New Mexico Department of Justice says state investigators first opened a parallel Zorro Ranch investigation in 2019 and began locating and interviewing potential victims. Former state Attorney General Hector Balderas says federal prosecutors in New York asked New Mexico to pause that work while the federal case moved forward, with an understanding that evidence and information would be shared. According to Balderas, the federal government never completed its side of that arrangement.
The state says it renewed its demands in February 2026, followed with formal requests in March and May, and repeatedly sought meetings with federal officials. New Mexico says a July production contained only 31 pages consisting mostly of previously released, heavily redacted material and local news coverage.
Its final demand set a July 31 deadline for access to the complete investigative record. The state filed suit after that deadline passed.
That history matters because New Mexico is not asking for a public document dump.
It says its prosecutors and agents need access for an active criminal investigation.
State investigators reopened the Zorro Ranch case in February and searched the property in March with assistance from New Mexico State Police and a K-9 team.
The current lawsuit seeks records New Mexico says could turn names hidden beneath black bars into witnesses, suspects or co-conspirators.
A verified local-news account carried the filing and the state’s demand for unredacted access:
The attorney general of New Mexico has filed a lawsuit seeking to force the Department of Justice to turn over unredacted Epstein files he says are necessary to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged crimes at the Zorro Ranch property he formerly owned.
— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) August 5, 2026
The Justice Department deserves a fair opportunity to explain any court order, privacy rule or statutory restriction that prevents disclosure.
But vague assurances are not enough when another law-enforcement agency says it is trying to identify survivors and possible offenders.
If particular records cannot lawfully be transferred, DOJ should identify the restriction and seek a court-approved path that protects victims while allowing legitimate investigative work to continue.
If records can be shared securely with state prosecutors, they should be shared.
President Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act because the American people were tired of secrecy protecting the powerful.
That principle does not require broadcasting victims’ names to the world.
It does require every lawful effort to help investigators pursue anyone who participated in Epstein’s crimes.
New Mexico has now put its accusations in a federal complaint.
Todd Blanche and the Justice Department will have to put their legal answer on the record.
