Epstein Truth Commission Drawn Into New Mexico’s Political Fight (8/4/26)

New Mexico Senate Republicans, led by Minority Leader Bill Sharer, called on the state’s bipartisan Epstein Survivors’ Truth Commission to subpoena Democratic gubernatorial candidate Deb Haaland and U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury. Sharer pointed to a 2014 campaign flight Haaland took on an aircraft arranged through Epstein and to an alleged connection between one of Stansbury’s former employers and Ghislaine Maxwell. Haaland’s campaign said she never interacted with Epstein and did not know how the flight had been arranged, while Stansbury categorically denied having any relationship with Epstein or Maxwell and said she was willing to testify. Independent reporting had also found that the aircraft Haaland used was not Epstein’s personal plane, undercutting Sharer’s more inflammatory characterization of the trip.

Sharer framed the subpoena request as a test of whether the commission was genuinely nonpartisan, but his motivation deserved skepticism. The commission had been created to investigate alleged abuse, institutional failures and public corruption connected to Epstein’s Zorro Ranch, yet Sharer’s demands focused heavily on two prominent Democrats, including one running for governor, while relying on connections that appeared indirect or disputed. Seeking testimony from anyone with potentially relevant knowledge was reasonable, but describing Haaland as having flown on “Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet” and suggesting that Stansbury had meaningful Epstein ties went beyond what the publicly established facts supported. That made the effort look at least partly like an attempt to weaponize the Epstein investigation for partisan advantage rather than a narrowly tailored effort to uncover what happened at Zorro Ranch and why authorities failed to act.


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