A newly elected Democratic congresswoman has slammed “patronizing” and “misleading” House Speaker Mike Johnson as he slows her swearing in, after she promised to become a key vote in releasing the Epstein Papers scandal.
Adelita Grijalva, who was elected on Sept. 23 to represent about 800,000 Arizonans in Congress, still has not been sworn in a month later.
Trump-loyalist Johnson has cited several reasons for the delay, but until she is sworn in, she cannot sign on as promised to a move to have the Epstein Files released.
Johnson says he has paused voting during the government shutdown, insisted that he is just following precedent, and that Grijalva can do anything sworn-in members can do—except vote.
“Instead of doing TikTok videos, she should be serving her constituents,” Johnson also said Monday.
Grijalva rejected his interpretation for multiple reasons.
“He’s just so patronizing and so misleading. He knows exactly what I can and cannot do, and I feel like he‘s trolling me because he‘s saying that I‘m on TikTok, which I‘m not,” she told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on The Source, minutes after Johnson himself appeared on the show.
Grijalva likened her experience thus far in the capital to that of a tourist.
“Respectfully, I don‘t have constituents until I am sworn in. When I‘m sworn in, I have constituents. Until then, I am a tourist in D.C. who does not have an identification to get in through security,” she said.
Collins, who was broadcasting from the U.S. Capitol after 9 p.m., later mentioned that Grijalva couldn’t even join her there at that hour.
“You can‘t get into Capitol Hill right now after certain hours because of the shutdown unless you have a Hill badge,” Collins said. “But you technically could not be on set with us tonight because you can‘t come in to the hill property this late at night.”
Grijalva listed other ways in which her operations were hampered.
“I cannot authorize staff to have identification because I‘m the administrator of the office. I don‘t have a budget. I can‘t open a leasing district,” she said. “And if you call the office right now, it‘s my dad‘s voice. I don‘t have access to any of those—like to get into voicemail, to change it, to do anything.”
A Daily Beast phone call to Grijalva’s Tucson office indeed resulted in a voicemail from her father, Raúl, who died in March. Her office in Somerton, Arizona, couldn’t even receive messages, since the voicemail box was full. And her Tolleson virtual office’s number was disconnected.
Additionally, a call to Grijalva’s Washington, D.C. office was met with a voicemail that doesn’t identify the office as hers.
Grijalva says Johnson is stalling because she has pledged to be the 218th and final signature needed to force a vote on releasing files related to Epstein.
Johnson, on The Source, gave a different account of his future colleague’s working conditions.
“The only thing she can’t do right now is vote on the floor because no one is because we’re not in legislative session. That’s the only thing she’s prevented from doing,” he claimed.
Johnson compared the situation to when former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was in charge, citing the case of Louisiana Rep. Julia Letlow, who was elected on March 20, 2021, and was sworn in Apr. 14 of that year.
But Johnson has also sworn in GOP Reps. Randy Fine and Jimmy Patronis, who were both sworn in while the House was out of session earlier in 2025.
One of the factors that makes this case different, however, is that Grijalva is poised to become the deciding vote on a critical House discharge petition to force a full vote on whether the White House should release files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the dead sex offender and former pal of Donald Trump.
Johnson has been confronted on this issue many times, but claims his refusal to not swear in Grijalva has “zero to do with Epstein.”
On Tuesday, the Arizona attorney general resorted to filing a lawsuit to get Grijalva sworn in, arguing that the Constitution doesn’t require that the speaker of the House conduct it.
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