Adelita Grijalva will be sworn in on Wednesday by Speaker Mike Johnson, his office said, ending weeks of delays and likely triggering a vote in the House of Representatives around the release of the Department of Justice’s trove of files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The speaker’s office made the announcement Tuesday afternoon, as Congress appeared to be on the brink of ending the longest federal government shutdown in history. Johnson previously said that Grijalva’s swearing-in would be delayed until the shutdown ended.
Speaking to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Tuesday night, Grijalva said, “It’s a little surreal” to know she’ll be sworn in Wednesday after waiting nearly 50 days.
Wednesday will be the first time Grijalva has spoken with Johnson directly and she said she’ll use the opportunity to address the issue of her delayed ceremony with the Speaker.
“I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to say. I'm going to be as respectful as possible...when I say...‘It's undemocratic, it's unconstitutional, it's illegal. Should never happen. This kind of obstruction cannot happen again regardless of party,” Grijalva told Collins.
Grijalva said the more than 800,000 Arizonans she is meant to represent “haven't had support during the shutdown because of Speaker Johnson's lack of transparency and willingness to do his job.”
Democrats in the chamber have loudly insisted for weeks that Johnson’s real aim in delaying Grijalva’s swearing-in was to prevent a vote on a resolution forcing the release of the so-called Epstein files, co-sponsored by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) and Ro Khanna (D-California).
With Grijalva’s signature the vote would be forced to the House floor as privileged legislation. With the votes of every Democrat in the chamber, and several Republicans, it’s expected to pass in an embarrassing defeat for the Trump administration.
Massie wrote on X Tuesday evening, “The 218th and final signature for the Epstein discharge petition will happen tomorrow.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters Tuesday evening Grijalva’s ceremony was delayed “because Republicans are running a pedophile protection program.”
Grijalva won a special election for the seat vacated by the passing of her father, former Rep. Raúl Grijalva, in September. Her father died in March, during his 12th term in Congress.
Khanna and Massie struck an alliance on the Epstein files after the Trump administration went back on its word to release more information pertaining to the investigation of Epstein earlier this year.
Khanna and Massie are due to hold a press conference on the issue Wednesday, as Grijalva is sworn in.
President Donald Trump and his Attorney General, Pam Bondi, summoned right-wing influencers such as Jack Posobiec to the White House in spring to receive binders labeled “phase one” of the Department of Justice’s Epstein document dump.
Further releases did not come to pass, and the DOJ eventually released a joint statement with the FBI walking back many previous positions: the agencies now claimed that a “list” of Epstein’s alleged co-conspirators never existed, and said that future releases of information would harm victims of sex abuse.
Trump, his Vice President JD Vance, and numerous other members of the administration endorsed calls to release the files before they came into power in January. In the aftermath of the joint DOJ-FBI statement, those calls evolved into criticism of Trump’s MAGA voter base for not dropping the issue.
Bondi, in a Fox interview, claimed after that initial “phase one” event at the White House, that a folder pertaining to the Epstein investigation and the supposed client list was “on her desk.”
In the months since, the House of Representatives has taken up the ball with Republicans and Democrats alike vowing to push for more information from the investigation into Epstein’s sex crimes to be released. Largely, that effort has been headed by the bipartisan House Oversight Committee, currently chaired by Republican Rep. James Comer.
Democrats, including some on the committee, have directly accused Trump and his Republican allies in Congress, including Mike Johnson, of participating in a cover up to shield the president. It was reported by Bloomberg that FBI officials went through the files to redact mentions of the president’s name before the decision was eventually made to halt the releases altogether. A person’s appearance in the documents does not indicate wrongdoing.
Comer’s committee released some files related to the investigation in September, including the birthday book containing a note allegedly written by Trump. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the letter in July, prompting a vehement denial from the president, who said he “never wrote a picture.” Trump filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the paper, its publisher and owner, Rupert Murdoch.
Trump has denied committing any illegal activities with Epstein, who was found dead in his prison cell in 2019, during Trump’s first term.
Many skeptics question whether Epstein’s death, ruled a suicide, was staged in the wake of his death. The Justice Department this year released security camera footage of the area outside of Epstein’s cell on the night of his death, but the video showed signs of editing and initially contained a minute of missing footage, fueling conspiracies.
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