'White House is hiding something': Speaker fans 'deepening suspicions' about Trump

The decision by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to keep the House out of session for yet another week is not doing furloughed government workers or Donald Trump any favors, a columnist wrote Tuesday.

James Downie wrote for MSNBC that the Louisiana Republican has no plan to negotiate with Democrats over the budget impasse and is using the shutdown crisis as an excuse to keep everyone away — which is leading to more speculation that it may be at the White House’s behest.

With the House not in session, Johnson has, so far, been able to stall Democratic Congresswoman-elect Adelita Grijalva of Arizona from being sworn in, with the knowledge that she will be the 218th signature on a discharge petition forcing a vote on the release of the notorious Jeffrey Epstein files.

According to Downie, Johnson's efforts seem more and more “futile.”

“Clearly, neither the White House nor Republicans in Congress want a vote on releasing the files,” he wrote, before adding, “But efforts to derail the discharge petition seem to have failed, and at some point — whether for the ACA subsidies or some other legislation — the House will have to come back.”

“By delaying Grijalva’s swearing-in, Johnson only deepens suspicions that the White House is hiding something,” he suggested while observing, “In his first year as speaker with a GOP president and Senate, Johnson has increasingly forgone the hard work of legislating while apparently hoping his talk could obscure some uncomfortable truths for Republicans.”