WASHINGTON, Aug. 7 -- New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez filed a federal lawsuit against the Justice Department this week, seeking to compel the release of unredacted Epstein investigation files that his office says are essential to an active criminal prosecution. The filing arrives as Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche acknowledged before a Senate committee that his department made "redaction mistakes" in handling documents Congress had specifically ordered made public.

The lawsuit targets records related to Jeffrey Epstein's Zorro Ranch, the roughly 8,000-acre New Mexico compound where at least ten women and girls have said they were groomed or sexually assaulted. Torrez's office has made six separate requests for cooperation si...