Filing by attorney general Raúl Torrez comes after DoJ appears to have ignored deadline for key Epstein ranch files

Filing by attorney general Raúl Torrez comes after DoJ appears to have ignored deadline for key Epstein ranch files

New Mexico filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Justice and acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, on Wednesday for “stonewalling” its criminal investigation into the activities of the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein at a remote ranch in the state.

Raúl Torrez, the New Mexico attorney general, had said he was mulling the possibility of legal action if the justice department did not share with him by 31 July information about the alleged historical abuse of girls and young women at Epstein’s Zorro ranch about 30 miles south of Santa Fe.

Wednesday’s filing, seen by the Guardian, delivers on that threat after the justice department appeared to ignore last Friday’s deadline.

  • Manjushri@piefed.socialEnglish
    1·
    22 hours ago

    This is true, however, he doesn’t need to pardon anything. This administration has made a habit of just ignoring court rulings that they don’t like.

    Since taking office, the Trump administration has employed various tactics to avoid complying with some of the dozens of orders courts have issued limiting its authority. In some cases, the administration has cited administrative error to explain and justify evident noncompliance. In others, the government has frustrated inquiries made by litigants and courts into whether an order is in fact being complied with. In the first six months of this administration alone, courts in at least 12 cases have found that the administration violated one or more court orders. In many more cases, litigants allege that orders are being violated, but haven’t yet been able to prove it.

    In order for your point to really come into play, the courts/litigants, need to go after individuals rather than the administration as a whole. The court can charge people with a (state level) crime for ignoring its orders. It cannot charge the administration to any effect.

    • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3·
      13 hours ago

      Not complying with a court order where the plaintiff is a normal citizen is one thing.

      Not complying with a court order where the plaintiff is the Attorney General of an elected state government, and thus effectively representing the interests of said state government, is another matter entirely. More pointedly, I expect Blanche Torrez (Blanche is DOJ and is one of the parties being sued, oops) to go full pitbull on this matter, and to leverage the whole legal apparatus of the state to the greatest degree possible against the DoJ here. That scenario, to be clear, is not something we have yet seen while this regime has been in power.