The suspicious purchase of Jeffrey Epstein’s New Mexico ranch by a MAGA Texan family just got even more suspicious. As I recently reported, Don Huffines’ family purchased the ranch via an anonymous LLC, without having visited it, in 2023.

The ranch is a known site of Jeffrey Epstein’s and Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking of underaged girls. An allegation that two girls died there during “rough, fetish s*x” and were buried nearby recently surfaced in an Epstein files release. Recently, State Rep. Andrea Romero, co-founder of New Mexico’s recently formed Epstein investigation “Truth Commission,” said survivors told her the ranch was "basically the worst."

After his family was outed as the owners, Huffines said, three years after the purchase, that the “plan all along” has been to turn the property into a “Christian retreat.”

Now we know that the Huffines family has begun construction on the ranch without calling in law enforcement officials to examine it and, allegedly, without the proper permit(s). The Santa Fe New Mexican reported on Wednesday that “state and county officials have ordered a pause on construction” at Epstein’s former ranch, “alleging the new owners failed to obtain the required permits.”

Former Texas state senator and current candidate for state comptroller Don Huffines is a successful real estate developer. He has to be sophisticated about permits and permitting processes.

Huffines has blamed law enforcement for his property going unexamined. He has pledged "full and complete cooperation" to "any federal, state or local enforcement requesting access" to the ranch. "The owners have never been approached by local, state, or federal law enforcement requesting access," his spokesman said.

But if you bought the property to “put light in a dark place,” as Huffines says he did, wouldn’t you have asked authorities to go over the known Epstein-crimes site with a fine-toothed comb without waiting for them to ask you first?

Romero said that the state and county have accused the Huffines of constructing a gate without permission and are investigating whether other construction has also occurred. In other words, was potentially important evidence altered or destroyed?

On Friday, Donald Trump gave Huffines a “complete and total endorsement” in what The Texas Tribune called “a last-minute boost” that directly opposed Gov. Greg Abbott’s pick.