Major issue flagged as new Epstein investigation kicks off: 'Fox guarding the henhouse'

While a New Mexico legislative committee began its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s sprawling compound known as Zorro Ranch last week, one veteran journalist warned that the effort is analogous to “the fox guarding the henhouse,” flagging what they described as a major “conflict of interest.”

Established in February by the New Mexico Legislature, the New Mexico Truth Commission was afforded $2 million in spending and granted subpoena power to investigate the potential criminal activity at Epstein’s New Mexico property, the site of which multiple women have claimed to have been sexually abused as minors.

The issue, journalist Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez warned in an analysis published on her Substack Saturday, was that the commission, “in reality,” appeared to be “mostly public relations crisis management and damage control for a political establishment in New Mexico that suddenly realized the world could see just how corrupt they’d been with regards to Epstein for decades.”

“The commission recently selected a law firm to lead its investigation, and when you look hard enough at the firm you start to see that the commission is mostly a PR stunt that doubles as a bag of cash for political donors,” Valdes-Rodriguez wrote.

That law firm was Fadduol, Cluff, Hardy & Conaway (FCHC), an Albuquerque-based personal injury law firm. As flagged by Valdes-Rodriguez, the firm’s founding partners each “donated the maximum allowable contribution of $2,300” to the presidential campaign of former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who was accused by prominent Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre of being sexually trafficked to by Epstein. Richardson had also accepted $100,000 from Epstein in campaign contributions in his re-election bids for governor, according to news reports.

“[Richardson] is a central figure in the very conduct the commission is supposed to be investigating. Whoops. Nothing to see here, folks. Keep moving,” Valdes-Rodriguez sarcastically wrote.

“If that seems like a conflict of interest, rest assured the people who selected this firm, who also got political donations from its members, have considered the matter carefully and arrived at the conclusion that it is fine.”