Republicans are actively trying to delay the release of the Epstein files.
House Speaker Mike Johnson was joined by other GOP leadership Tuesday in rejecting bids to swear in Democratic Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva.
Grijalva won the special election in Arizona last week to replace her father Raul Grijalva, making her the first Latina the Grand Canyon State has sent to Congress. She’s also the last signature that the House needs on a petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files—but Republicans are dragging their feet.
Instead, party leadership is refusing to swear in Grijalva until Congress returns to its regular session on October 3. But that’s not at all how Republicans treated their own representative-elects earlier this year: Party members didn’t delay swearing in Florida Republicans during a pro forma session in April, the day after they won their special elections.
The House was supposed to be in session on Monday and Tuesday, but Republican leaders cancelled those work days in an attempt to strong-arm Democrats into accepting another stopgap funding measure that would benefit Donald Trump’s agenda.
“There’s no reason why I couldn’t have been sworn in, and it’s very problematic, because we’re facing a government shutdown. We’re going to have constituents who have questions, and there is nobody there to answer questions,” Grijalva told The Hill.
She added that Johnson had not provided a timeline for her swearing-in ceremony, telling the publication, “Your guess is as good as mine.”
Grijalva’s swearing in appears to be noise in the background for House leadership, which is currently scrambling to prevent a government shutdown that would begin Tuesday night. But there’s plenty of precedent for Grijalva to be sworn in even in such complicated circumstances. For instance, the entire House was sworn in during a shutdown in 2019, during Trump’s first term.
Grijalva had already vowed to sign the bipartisan petition advancing the immediate release of the Epstein files. Just four Republicans have penned their signatures on the petition, demanding more transparency from the Trump administration regarding the investigation into deceased pedophilic sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his potential associates. Those conservative lawmakers include Representatives Thomas Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace, and Lauren Boebert.
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