Deb Haaland, the Democratic frontrunner in the race for New Mexico's next governor and former Secretary of the US Department of the Interior, once rode on a private jet linked to late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, according to newly released emails.
As reported by the NY Post, the emails reveal that Haaland was a passenger on the chartered plane in 2014 alongside then-New Mexico gubernatorial candidate Gary King and three other unnamed individuals. The trip carried the group from Santa Fe to Washington, DC, for a meeting. Epstein had arranged for the jet on behalf of King, according to the emails, and a flight information sheet listed the charterer as JEGE LLC, an entity associated with Epstein.
Haaland denied knowing the plane had ties to Epstein. A spokesperson, Hannah Menchhoff, told The Post:
"Deb never had any interaction with him and the way in which the plane was chartered was never communicated to her."
Menchhoff added:
"Jeffrey Epstein is a despicable predator who committed heinous crimes and Deb strongly supports a full investigation into the crimes committed both in New Mexico and abroad."
Haaland is currently leading in the polls in the New Mexico governor's race. That context matters.
Gary King's ties to Epstein run deeper than a single flight. Emails show King asked about "possibly using your plane" to get him from Santa Fe on the evening of September 8th, around 8 p.m., with a breakfast scheduled in DC on September 9th. The day after he flew on the jet, King told reporters he would return $35,600 in campaign contributions from companies associated with Epstein, calling it "the right thing to do."
King told The Post he "would not have personally reached out to Mr. Epstein or affiliated businesses asking to use his airplane any time in 2014." He also claimed that "to the best of my knowledge, none of the contacts identified themselves as working for Mr. Epstein," and added:
"If I had known in advance that the jet 'belonged' to Mr. Epstein, I would have asked my campaign to contract with a different company."
That denial sits uncomfortably next to the rest of the record. Emails show King met with Epstein in New Mexico in August of 2010, two years after Epstein pled guilty to one count of soliciting prostitution and one count of soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. King said he "only personally met" Epstein "one time" during an hour and a half long meeting, where, in King's telling, they discussed King's father.
"We reminisced about what a great man my father was and how much my father was respected by his peers in NM and nationally."
King also said he believed they "discussed Mr. Epstein's relationship with the Santa Fe Institute." The connection between the families traces back to 1993, when King's father, former New Mexico Governor Bruce King, sold the Zorro Ranch in Santa Fe County to Epstein.
"Mr. Epstein purchased a parcel of ranch land and built a very large house there a few years later. This would be the reason I knew who Mr. Epstein was."
King clarified that "in all the years since the sale, I have not been on the property or in the house that was built."
Epstein's presence in New Mexico has always been the quieter chapter of his story. The Virgin Islands and Manhattan drew the cameras, but the Zorro Ranch sat in the background for decades. State officials recently announced their reopening of the investigation into Epstein's lesser-known property for alleged criminal activity, a sign that the New Mexico thread is far from closed.
Epstein pled guilty in 2008 and killed himself in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City in 2019 while awaiting sex trafficking charges. The questions he left behind did not die with him.
The standard Epstein defense has become remarkably uniform across party lines: I didn't know. I wasn't told. I would never have accepted if I had been aware. It is always passive. The connection is always one degree removed, always facilitated by someone else, always obscured by an LLC or an intermediary.
Haaland's camp says the arrangement was never communicated to her. King says he didn't know whose plane it was. Yet the emails tell a story of a specific request, a specific jet, and a specific financier who made it happen. Someone knew. The question voters in New Mexico deserve answered is who, and whether the leading candidate for governor bothered to ask before boarding.
Haaland leads in the polls. These emails just introduced themselves to the race.