New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez on Friday announced he was opening a formal investigation into allegations recently reported by the Associated Press and the Albuquerque Journal that Drug Enforcement Administration officials declined to seize large fentanyl shipments in New Mexico in hopes of catching high-level dealers and suppliers further down the line.
Earlier this week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham asked Torrez to investigate the allegations raised in a whistleblower complaint and to prosecute any agents who acted illegally. Since the whistleblower complaint was made public, members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation announced an investigation of their own and DEA Administrator Terrance Cole asked the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General to “conduct an independent review.”
In a Friday letter to Lujan Grisham, Torrez wrote that he is “committed to a thorough and aggressive investigation,” but noted that federal agents typically enjoy “substantial” constitutional protections that can make litigation difficult.
“If those allegations are accurate, the consequences for New Mexicans were not abstract. They were fatal,” he wrote. “I want to be direct with you about the legal landscape: While federal law enforcement personnel are not above the law, the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution provides substantial protections for federal employees acting within the scope of their authority.”
Torrez told Lujan Grisham that he will seek documentation from the DEA about its operations in New Mexico and across the nation to determine if “what occurred here reflects a broader pattern of reckless or unlawful behavior.”
“Once the facts are established, we will pursue the full range of available remedies,” he wrote, noting that could mean criminal prosecution, civil litigation or litigation under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which covers negligent and wrongful acts committed by government employees.
State leaders in recent years have sounded alarms over the abundance of fentanyl on New Mexico’s streets. Last year, Lujan Grisham mobilized the National Guard to Española over the community’s outsized number of fentanyl overdose deaths. And a recent Legislative Finance Committee report found that overdose deaths have risen significantly in New Mexico while they’ve declined elsewhere across the nation.
In a statement, Torrez said New Mexicans who have lost family members to the drug trade “deserve the truth about what the federal government knew and what it failed to do.”
“If the DEA stood by while poison flooded our communities, that is not a bureaucratic failure. It is a betrayal of the people it was sworn to protect,” he said.
