As police for the first time search Jeffrey Epstein¡¯s New ?Mexico ranch for evidence of any abuse he may have committed at the Old West-themed hideaway, attention has focused on the powerful former politicians in the state who continued to meet and receive campaign donations from Epstein long after he became a registered sex offender.

Epstein¡¯s relationships with state Democratic Party leaders, including two former governors and a state attorney general, and the institutional failings that may have allowed the convicted sex offender to perpetrate abuse at the ranch are under investigation by a New Mexico state ¡°truth commission¡± ¡ª the first of its kind in the country.

Zorro Ranch, where Epstein spent about two months a year, was alleged to be a hub in his sex trafficking of children that stretched ?between the U.S. Virgin Islands, New York and Florida, according to a 2020 letter from the New Mexico Attorney General¡¯s office and numerous documents among the millions recently released by the U.S. Department of Justice.