House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) still hasn't sworn in an Arizona Democrat who won her special election last month, and she suspects he's blocking her to prevent the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva came to Washington last week after decisively winning her Sept. 23 election to replace her late father in Congress, but the Louisiana Republican still hasn't organized a swearing-in ceremony, and she told "CNN News Central" the delay is unusual.
"I try not to be a conspiracy theorist," Grijalva said. "I'm, like, okay, there has to be some plausible explanation, but in my case this speaker, Speaker Johnson, has sworn in three other members of Congress that were elected in a special [election], and two of them were Republican, April 1, and they were sworn in April 2 in a pro forma session, and then we have Rep. [James] Walkinshaw, a Democrat, sworn in about three weeks ago, elected on a Tuesday, sworn in less than 24 hours later on Wednesday, and there was a pro forma session."
"I was in D.C. and now I hear, 'Well, the next time that Congress is in session,' we were scheduled to be in session Sept. 29, [Sept.] 30, those were canceled, and we were scheduled to be in session on the 7th of October," Grijalva added. "Those were also canceled, and now he has indicated publicly that until the Senate does their, you know, passes something that the House can look at, then we're not coming back. So I don't know, have any idea when I might get sworn in, and the Speaker's office has not had any direct communication with me."
Democrats have speculated that Johnson is trying to prevent her from signing on to a discharge petition circulated by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to force a vote on releasing evidence from Epstein's sex trafficking case, and Grijalva agreed that's possible.
"I am going to be the 218th signer to the discharge petition, so that is the only thing that most people are pointing to," she said. "I mean, I am a woman of color, a Chicana from Tucson. None of those factors, I don't think, are reasons why I wouldn't be being sworn in, other than pointing to the Epstein files and the complete lack of transparency from this administration in releasing those files. The other is Speaker Johnson has closed down votes in the recent past to avoid a vote on the Epstein files. So there does seem to be a connection."
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