House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is pressing Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to seat a newly elected Democrat who is the key to forcing a vote on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files.
In a letter sent to Johnson on Thursday, Jeffries demanded that the Speaker swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) during a pro forma session of the House on Friday at 2 p.m.
“Her election has been officially certified by the state of Arizona. In fact, it was never in question,” Jeffries wrote. “Yet, for more than three weeks House Republicans have denied the people of Arizona’s 7th district their rightful representation in Congress.
“The continued refusal to seat Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva for partisan advantage undermines the integrity of this institution.”
Grijalva was elected on Sept. 23, in a special contest to replace her father, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who died of cancer in March.
Johnson has canceled all scheduled House sessions since then in a move designed to maximize the pressure on Senate Democrats to support a Republican spending bill. The budget impasse led to the government shutdown on Oct. 1, and Johnson has said he won’t call the House back to Washington until Democrats help to reopen the government.
Johnson had initially said he would swear in Grijalva “whenever” she wanted. But since then, he’s refused to use the pro forma sessions — routine procedures allowing one chamber to recess for days at a time without the consent of the other — to do so.
Johnson has said Grijalva deserves the “pomp and circumstance” of being sworn in while the full House is in the Capitol. Grijalva says she doesn’t care so much about the ceremony as she does about being sworn in. She’s been in Washington pleading for Johnson to seat her.
She and other Democrats are pointing to Johnson’s move in April to use pro forma sessions to swear in two Florida Republicans almost immediately after their special election victories. They say the Speaker is applying a different standard to Grijalva for the simple reason that she will be the decisive 218th signature on a discharge petition to go around GOP leaders and force a vote on the Epstein files.
“The decision to seat right-wing Republicans with record speed, while denying a newly elected Democrat the opportunity to serve is an unacceptable disgrace,” Jeffries wrote in his letter.
Johnson opposes the Epstein legislation, warning that it could lead to the release of the names of Epstein victims against their wishes — a claim the bill’s sponsors reject. He’s supporting a separate investigation into Epstein, the late child sex offender, being conducted by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Johnson said attorneys for the Oversight Committee have been in New York during the shutdown “combing through the Epstein estate files.”
President Trump is a big part of the Epstein debate. Before entering politics, Trump had associated with Epstein and his girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who’s serving a 20-year prison sentence for crimes related to the sex trafficking of minors.
A message bearing Trump’s name also appears in a book celebrating Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003. The so-called “birthday book” was delivered to the Oversight Committee by Epstein’s estate under subpoena over the summer. Trump and the White House say the signature is a fake.
And U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi had informed the president earlier this year that he appears in the Justice Department’s unreleased Epstein files, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The combination has led Democrats, and some high-profile Republicans, to accuse GOP leaders of blocking the Epstein bill to shield Trump and other wealthy Republicans from humiliating revelations — a charge Johnson has adamantly denied.
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