The US Department of Justice (DoJ) appeared to miss a 31 July deadline to provide information regarding the alleged abuse of girls at a ranch formerly owned by Jeffrey Epstein. New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez had set the deadline for the DoJ to share unredacted files.
Mr Torrez's office had requested the files in February after reopening a criminal investigation into activities at Zorro ranch, a 10,000-acre property outside New Mexico. He stated that only 31 pages were handed over, which he described as mostly old news clippings and heavily redacted pages of little use to state investigators.
In a 14 July letter to Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, Mr Torrez indicated he would "pursue all available legal remedies without further notice" if the deadline passed. He also told Albuquerque ABC News affiliate KOAT that he was "not ruling out a lawsuit."
The US attorney’s office for the district of New Mexico stated to the Guardian that it had "substantively responded" to Mr Torrez’s request on 30 June by emailing the 31 documents. A spokesperson said some of these communications directed Mr Torrez to the US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York (SDNY), which led the original Epstein investigation.