A Democrat is on track to easily win a special election for an open House seat in Arizona, giving a bipartisan group of representatives the numbers needed to force a vote to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Adelita Grijalva, who was running to succeed her late father, Rep. Raul Grijalva, has vowed to sign a House resolution to force a vote on legislation instructing the Department of Justice to release all of its investigative files on the late sex offender.
Her victory cuts the Republican House majority to 219-214, and means she can deliver a decisive signature on the petition, which needs 218 votes to pass, CNN reported.
Its co-sponsor, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), told the outlet that a vote on his Epstein Files Transparency Act could be coming as soon as mid-October.
The Associated Press called the race for Arizona’s 7th district early Wednesday for Grijalva, who was leading her Republican opponent with 68.5 percent of the vote.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to call a vote on the legislation, which President Donald Trump opposes, and even released the House a day early for its August recess to avoid any votes on the files.
In response, Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna introduced a discharge petition earlier this month that would circumvent party leaders to bring the bill to the floor.
Every House Democrat has signed, along with a handful of Republican defectors. The White House has warned lawmakers that Trump views pushing for the files’ release as a “very hostile act.”
For more than a decade, Trump was good friends with Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Although officials concluded the disgraced financier died by suicide, several MAGA factions have argued that he was murdered in his cell to protect his powerful clients.
Despite promising to release the files during his re-election bid, the president has since dismissed the effort as a Democrat-led “hoax” designed to distract from what he argues are “the most successful eight months of any president ever.”
Several of the president’s staunch allies—Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and Nancy Mace—have nevertheless signed the discharge petition.
Earlier this month, Mace left a closed-door meeting with Epstein’s survivors in tears.
A few days later, the discharge petition picked up another vote after Democrat James Walkinshaw won a special election in Virginia to fill the late Rep. Gerry Connolly’s seat, bringing the number of backers to 217.
Grijalva, meanwhile, told CNN in a statement that the Epstein case had “definitely come up” on the campaign trail.
“We are hearing from voters that they believe the survivors deserve justice, and Congress must fulfill its duty to check the executive branch and hold Trump accountable,” she said.
Given that Arizona’s 7th district leans heavily Democratic, Grijalva was widely expected to win Tuesday’s race. Her opponent, Republican Daniel Butierez, had also committed to signing the petition.
Last week, Massie told CNN that the House could vote on his Epstein bill as soon as mid-October. Once Grijalva is sworn in and the needed signatures are secured, Massie must wait at least seven legislative days to bring the bill to the floor.
House leaders can also wait two legislative days before putting it to a vote. The bill is likely to face an uphill battle in the Senate if it clears the House, but it will force Republicans to go on record over the Epstein files.
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