SANTA FE, N.M. — A taxpayer-funded commission created to expose the truth about Jeffrey Epstein’s New Mexico ranch is now facing accusations that it buried part of that truth — and Senate Republicans say the name missing from the record belongs to one of New Mexico’s most powerful Democrats.

The House Survivors’ Truth Commission, the bipartisan panel investigating Epstein’s Zorro Ranch near Santa Fe, released its long-awaited interim report Aug. 5. Within a week, the four-member panel was engulfed in its own controversy — not over what Epstein did, but over what the commission chose not to say.

At the center of it: Deb Haaland, the Democratic nominee for governor, and a 2014 flight on a private jet linked to Epstein’s inner circle.

THE FLIGHT

Records reviewed by the New Mexico Political Report show Haaland flew in 2014 on a private jet chartered by Gary King, a longtime Epstein associate, while she ran for lieutenant governor on King’s gubernatorial ticket. Haaland has said for months she had no knowledge of Epstein’s involvement in arranging the plane.

That flight — and Haaland’s name — did not appear in the truth commission’s 119-page interim report.

THE OMISSION SURFACES

Senate Republican Leader Bill Sharer, R-Farmington, was the first to raise the alarm, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican. Two Republican members of the commission itself, Reps. Andrea Reeb of Clovis and Bill Hall of Aztec, said they didn’t even see the final report until 11:30 p.m. the night before it was publicly unveiled at the Capitol — and said they only learned Haaland’s name had been stripped out after Sharer went public.

“Are New Mexico taxpayers funding the Epstein ‘Truth’ Commission or the Epstein ‘Cover-up’ Commission?” Sharer said in the release that broke the story, calling the omission “gravely concerning” and saying it raised “serious questions about Chair Andrea Romero and the special committee’s true intentions.”

THE CHAIR PUSHES BACK

Commission Chair Andrea Romero, D-Santa Fe, rejected the accusation directly, saying she was “shocked to hear of these concerns through the press” and that every commissioner had weighed in on the report. Romero said the panel made a “collective decision” to leave out survivors, victims and “the countless parties with tangential interactions, unverified claims, or fractional reporting,” keeping the report’s focus on “perpetrators and enablers” rather than on names swept up in the periphery.

Reeb and Hall, for their part, said they remain committed to the commission’s work — but only if it operates as a “truly bipartisan effort” going forward.

SHARER ESCALATES

The dispute didn’t stay contained to the House. On Aug. 17, Sharer — who does not sit on the commission but leads the Senate Republican Caucus — renewed a demand first made in late July: subpoena Haaland and U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury and put them under oath.

“This is simple: the so-called ‘truth’ commission was caught running interference for Deb Haaland, and in order to retain any sense of credibility, they must immediately do their job and let the people of New Mexico hear the truth directly from Haaland,” Sharer said. “New Mexicans deserve the opportunity to hear an unfiltered explanation of her reported ties to Jeffrey Epstein and his criminal syndicate. If there’s nothing to hide, the silence from Deb Haaland and the proven cover-up from the taxpayer-funded ‘truth’ commission are concerning to say the least.”

Stansbury has said she is willing to testify. Haaland’s campaign has not directly addressed the subpoena request, though it has previously pointed to independent fact-checks and flight records regarding the 2014 trip.

The commission has not acted on the subpoena request. At its Aug. 5 meeting, members instead approved four new subpoenas — to the state departments of Workforce Solutions, Public Safety and Health, and to the Ten Thousand Waves spa — without taking up the Haaland and Stansbury demand.

WHERE IT STANDS

The commission has now issued 20 subpoenas total: 11 met with full compliance, two with partial compliance, and seven ignored outright, including by the FAA and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. No date has been set for the panel’s next meeting.

The dispute lands squarely in the middle of a governor’s race in which Haaland is the Democratic frontrunner — and gives Senate Republicans a fresh line of attack heading into the fall campaign, framing a bipartisan investigatory body as having taken sides.