Mike Johnson absolutely does not want to talk about Jeffrey Epstein in relation to the government shutdown.
“It’s totally absurd!” the House Speaker proclaimed during a Sunday appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press. “This has nothing to do with that. It’s another red herring.”
Critics of the MAGA administration have accused Donald Trump of using the ongoing shutdown to stave off further scrutiny of his relationship with the late pedophile. Johnson rebukes that.
“The reason the government is closed is because Ch- Chuck Schumer and.. 43 of his Democrat colleagues in the Senate have decided now to vote multiple times to keep the government closed,” Johnson continued, stumbling over the Senate Minority leader’s name.
“We need them to turn the lights back on so that everyone can do their work.”
Johnson was responding to host Kirsten Welker’s observation that the shutdown precludes new documents on Epstein’s crimes being released to the public—and not just because it marks a hiatus to the House Oversight Committee’s ongoing review of the Justice Department’s handling of the case.
“[Democrats] say the House is not in session because you don’t want to swear in this newly elected member, the Congresswoman, Democratic Congresswoman from Arizona, who would be a critical vote to releasing the Epstein files,” Welker said to Johnson.
Democrat Adelita Grijalva recently won a special election in the southern state to fill a vacant House seat. Her victory followed the death of her father Raúl Grijalva earlier this year, who held Arizona’s 7th Congressional district since 2003.
Grijalva’s signature is considered critical to deciding the fate of a bipartisan “discharge petition,” co-authored by Democratic Representative Ro Khanna and his Republican counterpart Thomas Massie. Grijalva’s swearing in likely would force a floor vote on demanding the Justice Department to release additional documents on the Epstein case.
Trump, who has for years courted far right conspiracy theorists over Epstein’s crimes, has lately faced intense scrutiny of his own relationship with the disgraced financier.
His administration announced in June that contrary to online rumors, Epstein’s 2019 death in police custody was a suicide, and that he kept no “client list” of uber-wealthy co-conspirators. This finding outraged many in the MAGA-verse.
Johnson, however, was resolute in denying the ongoing pause to government business has anything to do with the Epstein files. Instead the speaker doubled down on firmly leveling blame for the shutdown on his opponents across the aisle.
“They’re not serious,” Johnson said, recovering from his tongue-tie. “This is not a serious negotiation, they are doing this to get political points.”
The post Johnson Trips Over Words When Cornered on Epstein Files appeared first on The Daily Beast.
