House Speaker Mike Johnson has been threatened with legal action if he does not swear in an Arizona Democrat who could be key to forcing the Department of Justice to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Attorney General Kris Mayes warned Johnson she will take him to court if Adelita Grijalva is not officially sworn in as the representative for Arizona’s 7th Congressional District following her comprehensive special election victory in September.
Grijalva, who won the seat previously held by her late father, Rep. Raúl Grijalva, who died in March, has pledged to be the 218th and final signature needed on a discharge petition to release all files related to Epstein, the billionaire pedophile who died in prison in 2019.
Mayes, a Democrat, sent a letter to Johnson on Tuesday condemning the House speaker’s “ever-shifting, unsatisfactory, and sometimes absurd” excuses for delaying Grijalva’s swearing-in. She warned she would seek judicial relief if Johnson did not immediately provide a timeline for Grijalva to be admitted to her Arizona seat.
Speaking to CNN’s Laura Coates Live on Tuesday, Mayes said she will have “no other choice” but to take Johnson to court unless he swears in Grijalva soon, suggesting that her support for the Epstein files petition is the Republican’s real motivation for the delay.
“There’s no legitimate reason for him to refuse to swear her in right now—no other reason that I can think of, except that perhaps she’s the final vote to discharge the Epstein files,” Mayes said. “And it’s not fair for Mike Johnson to be holding the state of Arizona hostage because he doesn’t want to release the Epstein files.”
Johnson has said the Epstein files have “nothing to do” with the delay in swearing in Grijalva and that he will be prepared to do so once the government shutdown ends and the House is back in session.
Democrats have urged Johnson to swear her in during a so-called “pro forma” session, in which the House briefly convenes for constitutional purposes. Two Florida Republicans were sworn in during a pro forma session in April, just one day after winning their own special elections.
Mayes argued that Johnson’s actions are “unconstitutional” and are “depriving” Arizona of full representation in Congress.
“This really has not been done before, and the case law in general is with us on this issue,” Mayes told CNN. “So we would be saying to a judge we’d like a declaratory judgment that says the speaker has to seat Adelita Grijalva, he has to swear her in. And if he doesn’t, then he’ll be violating our rights as Arizonans, and he’ll be violating the Constitution.”
The Daily Beast has contacted Johnson’s office for comment.
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