New Mexico Sues DOJ Over Epstein Ranch Investigation Files

New Mexico sued the Department of Justice and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche Wednesday for “stonewalling” its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch.

In a 40-page filing, New Mexico asked for access to unredacted documents from the Epstein files that it claimed the DOJ has been intentionally withholding.

“New Mexico has a duty to protect survivors and investigate crimes committed in our state so that perpetrators can be held accountable,” said Attorney General Raúl Torrez in a statement. “We asked the Department of Justice to cooperate by providing access to records that may be critical to identifying victims, witnesses, and additional criminal conduct at Zorro Ranch. Their delay is actively hurting our criminal investigation and delaying justice Epstein survivors deserve.”

Torrez threatened legal action against the DOJ last month, setting July 31 as the deadline for federal officials to comply with the state investigation into extensive abuse allegations on the property.

Zorro Ranch, located roughly 30 miles south of Santa Fe in the high desert, was rumored to be a hotbed of illicit activity under Epstein’s stewardship. Some of the notorious child sex offender’s victims, including Virginia Giuffre, claimed they were trafficked at the New Mexico estate, and emails issued by ranch staffers allege that the bodies of at least two girls were buried under the building by Epstein’s order, according to documents made public by the Justice Department via the Epstein files.

At one point, Epstein even contemplated turning the estate, which he purchased in 1993, into a headquarters for genetic engineering experiments.

Yet somehow, the property—dubbed “Playboy Ranch” among locals—was never properly investigated, according to New Mexico officials.

The state had every intention to do so until the first Trump administration intervened in 2019, when the federal government ordered New Mexico to turn over its probe to federal prosecutors. But the feds chose to close the case rather than pursue it, according to records obtained by The New York Times earlier this year.

In February, New Mexico lawmakers voted unanimously to pursue another investigation into Zorro Ranch, creating a bipartisan “truth commission” to examine the site’s history. At the time, Torrez also ordered his office to reopen the criminal investigation into Zorro Ranch, demanding “immediate access to the complete, unredacted federal case file.”

Congress ordered the full release of all unclassified, Epstein-related data when it passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act in November, granting the DOJ 30 days after its signing date to comply with the law. But nine months later, the government still has yet to meet its legal obligations.

Most fingers have pointed to Blanche for foiling the files’ release. Even other Trump officials—notably, former Attorney General Pam Bondi—said Blanche was responsible for the bungled rollout.

Nonetheless, Blanche seems to be failing upwards, apparently unscathed by the glaring failure. On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced Blanche’s confirmation for a full Senate vote, putting him within arms reach of the most powerful law enforcement position in the country.

This story has been updated.

Authorities in California arrested a man who was walking around the Los Angeles area Trump National Golf Club on Sunday afternoon.

Jeanine John Taele, 38, first arrived at the golf course on Friday, July 31, three days before Trump was scheduled to be there. He was seen wearing an earpiece and taking pictures and video of the course while the Secret Service conducted a security assessment.

Two days later, on August 2, Taele came back to the course, walked up to federal agents there, and told them he was working for State Department security. After Taele was detained by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, deputies found a 16-round magazine with hollow-point bullets in his pants pockets and a loaded 9mm pistol in his pickup truck. A home search also revealed a modified A.R.-platform rifle, body armor, and notebooks full of “concerning statements.”

“Mr. Taele’s troubling behavior at the President’s public golf course merely days before the President was expected to arrive raised serious red flags for law enforcement and led to the discovery of an unregistered firearm, a loaded weapon, as well as additional items of concern,” FBI Los Angeles Field Office assistant director Patrick Grandy said. “There is no room for error, particularly in light of previous attempts on President Trump’s life, and the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, working with our partners at the U.S. Secret Service, the ATF, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, will investigate this case thoroughly.”

Taele now faces federal charges of “possession of an unregistered short-barreled rifle,” a felony with a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

President Trump has yet to comment.

Freedom 250’s corporate sponsors may have violated the Lobbying Disclosure Act.

Some of America’s biggest corporations shelled out millions of dollars to support Freedom 250, the Trump administration’s public-private partnership that oversaw spending for the country’s semiquincentennial celebration.

It was no secret who was involved: The Freedom 250 website proudly displayed nearly two dozen of its sponsors, including Palantir, Boeing, ExxonMobil, United Health Group, and more.

But most of those corporations—including defense contractors Lockheed Martin, GE Aerospace, and Northrop Grumman—did not disclose the payments on lobbyist contribution reports that were due to Congress by last Friday, according to a NOTUS investigation.

Just three Freedom 250 backers made note of their event contributions in their recent filings, as required by the federal Lobbying Disclosure Act: Chevron, United Airlines, and RTX, according to NOTUS.

The law “is certainly not airtight, and certain entities have found ways to try to exploit this law,” Aaron Scherb, a longtime ethics and democracy advocate, told NOTUS.

“Nonetheless, it requires full disclosure of political spending when companies are trying to curry favor with an administration and elected officials,” Scherb said. “So, companies contributing to Freedom 250 should absolutely be required to disclose their political spending.”

Freedom 250 is a subsidiary of Task Force 250, an entity that Donald Trump signed into existence by executive order days into his second term. It largely replaced the “America250” nonprofit that was created by Congress a decade ago to oversee the semiquincentennial’s funding and development strategies.

Unlike America250, Freedom 250 is technically a limited liability company housed within the National Park Service’s charity arm, the National Park Foundation.

Trump himself is the chair of Freedom 250, while the rest of his Cabinet are listed as members.

“When it comes to other nonprofits, the question is always whether it was created and controlled by Trump,” Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist at the left-leaning nonprofit watchdog Public Citizen, told NOTUS. “But there is little question about Freedom 250.”

President Trump continues to insist that the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was vandalized, even after D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro admitted in court that it was not. 

Speaking to reporters outside of Air Force One in Los Angeles Tuesday night, Trump defended the contractor who handled the pool’s renovation, despite Pirro’s office dropping charges against all of the people accused of vandalizing the pool, including former Olympian David Hearn.  

“I just think he’s totally wrong. They did a beautiful job. There were a couple of little things, but that was not a big deal. And everybody saw the vandalism, all you have to do is look at the tape, if you look at the tape. Plus, we have a witness, or two witnesses that saw the vandalism. So certainly where there was vandalism, there was actually, in my opinion, there was major vandalism, and I told [Pirro] I was not happy,” Trump said. He was noncommittal when asked if Pirro would be staying at her job. 

Trump’s claim of there being video proof doesn’t appear to be true, as it was never mentioned in charging documents. It’s not clear which witness or witnesses he is referring to either, as the Department of Justice’s main witness actually undermined the vandalism case against Hearn. The contractor assigned to clean up the pool, the ironically named Greenwater Services, put hydrogen peroxide into the pool to kill algae, causing Trump’s personally chosen “American flag blue” paint to begin peeling. 

Trump’s comments come after he, Pirro, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who was in charge of the pool’s renovation, reportedly got into a screaming match in the White House over the vandalism cases. Despite Pirro taking in a box of evidence to prove the vandalism cases were weak, Trump still believes his own version of the story. Then again, Trump never liked admitting when he’s wrong. 

GOP Representative Max Miller was accused of holding a gun to his ex-wife’s head, scalding her with boiling water, and breaking his two-year-old daughter’s collarbone. He also shared pictures of his daughter’s genitals. House Speaker Mike Johnson is still supporting him.

“I haven’t spoken to Max about this in the last few days. Of course, I will,” Johnson told Politico’s Dasha Burns in an interview. “There’s all sorts of domestic events going on with 435 members of Congress all the time, it’s not my business to get engaged in it.”

The House Ethics Committee opened an investigation into the abuse claims against Miller, as well as allegations of drug use. The claims were made by his ex-wife Emily Moreno, daughter of Republican Senator Bernie Moreno.

“I think Max is taking them seriously. I think our colleagues are,” Johnson continued. “But, again, we have to allow this process to play out. It’s just begun.”

It does not look like Miller is taking it seriously. He posted a 20-minute video on Sunday denying all of his ex-wife’s allegations, arguing that her being civil to him after the period of alleged abuse delegitimized them. His own lawyer admitted to accidentally uploading nude pictures of his daughter via Dropbox. Miller claimed that they were part of a Child Protective Services investigation. That same Dropbox contained recordings of Miller saying throwing hot water on Emily was a “playful incident.”

Miller has remained indignant, making multiple media appearances—all of which make his situation look worse. He claimed on CNN Tuesday night that Johnson and the rest of the party were “standing behind” him.

“My constituents know who I am, and they also know who my ex-father-in-law is, and they also know who my ex-wife is.... People aren’t running from me,” Miller told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “Speaker Mike Johnson, everyone else—they’re standing behind me. No one has told me to get off the ballot.”

But even that’s up for debate. While Johnson offered tepid support, Senator Moreno said Miller needed “serious psychological help,” and called on him to step down from Congress and abandon his current reelection campaign. And Trump, who was also initially supportive, called Miller personally to tell him that things weren’t “looking good.”

Even still, Johnson chose to trust the ethics committee process rather than call on Miller to end his train-wreck of a political career.

“It’s, in his own words, a nasty divorce proceeding, and it’s gotten ugly and it’s gotten public,” Johnson said. “But he’s saying the same things privately to members that he is publicly, that he denies all this.... There’s a process. The House Ethics Committee does that. We always withhold judgment on this, whether it’s Republicans or Democrats.”

Miller has five days to drop out if Republicans have any hope of replacing him on the ballot.