Democrats will soon have the final signature they need to force a vote on the Epstein files.
Congresswoman-elect Adelita Grijalva, a Democrat, will be sworn in Wednesday when the House returns—seven weeks after she won a special election in Arizona.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told CNN that Grijalva will take her oath of office before the House votes on a funding bill to reopen the government.
Grijalva, 55, said she is “really upset” her first vote is “on a bill that does nothing for affordable health care for the American people.” However, attention surrounding Grijalva’s swearing-in is not about her stance on reopening the government, but is regarding the sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
A petition introduced by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie is a single signature away from forcing a vote on the release of new DOJ files on Epstein, and Grijalva has said she will sign it.
That will make Grijalva the 218th signature, triggering a floor vote in the House if no lawmakers back out of their signature.
Members who have signed the document are predominantly Democrats. However, a trio of GOP firebrands—Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and Nancy Mace—have also joined Massie in demanding a vote on the files.
Johnson denies he delayed Grijalva’s swearing-in because of the Epstein petition.
He told sports pundit Stephen A. Smith’s podcast that the issue was “another red herring” and “total distraction.” He said the petition was “a moot point” because the House Oversight Committee has an active probe of its own into the Epstein files.
Democratic Rep. Katherine Clark, of Massachusetts, disagrees. She urged Johnson to swear her in to Congress in a fiery letter sent Monday.
“Any delay in swearing in Representative-elect Grijalva unnecessarily deprives her constituents of representation and calls into question if the motive behind the delay is to further avoid the release of the Epstein files,” she wrote.
Clark also noted that Republicans who won a special election this year—Reps. Randy Fine and Jimmy Patronis—were almost immediately sworn into the House.
Should Massie’s bill pass the House, it would need to clear the Senate to be enacted.
Still, voting on such a bill would require lawmakers to decide whether to be loyal to their constituents, many of whom demand answers on Epstein, or to the president, an old friend of Epstein who has pleaded with Americans to drop the issue and trust that there is nothing more to the case than what is already public.
