As long as Speaker Mike Johnson continues to refuse to bring the House back into session, the reason why Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva has not been sworn in yet will remain unclear.
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I can think of a few reasons why Johnson would stall on swearing her in.
The first is that any vote that may be required in the House to end the government shutdown is going to be close. Speaker Johnson might be trying to deny Democrats an extra vote.
The other possibility is one that Adelita Grijalva herself pointed out on CNN, namely that she will be the 218th signature on the Epstein files discharge petition.
Video:
Grijalva said on CNN’s News Central in response to the question about why she hasn’t been sworn in yet:
In general, I try not to be a conspiracy theorist. I’m like, okay, there has to be some plausible explanation, but in my case, this Speaker Johnson, has sworn in three other members of Congress who were elected in a special, and two of them were Republicans, on April 1st, and they were sworn in on April 2nd in a pro forma session. And then we have a representative, Walkinshaw, a Democrat sworn in about three weeks ago, vote, elected on a Tuesday, sworn in less than 24 hours later on Wednesday. And there was a pro forma session.
I was in DC. And now I hear the next time that Congress is in session, we were scheduled to be in session September 29th, the 30th, those were canceled. Then we were scheduled to be in session on the 7th of October. Those were also canceled. And now he has indicated publicly that until the Senate does their, passes something that the House can look at.
Then they’re, we’re not coming back. So I don’t know. I have any idea when I might gets sworn in and the Speaker’s office has not had any direct communication with me.
Grijalva said that she has heard from other Democrats that the Epstein files discharge petition is the reason for the delay:
I am hearing that and I am going to be the 218th signer to the discharge petition. So that is the only thing that most people are pointing to. I am a woman of color, a Chicana from Tucson. None of those factors I don’t think are reasons why would it 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.
Mike Johnson has delayed the swearing in of new Democratic members before to buy himself time before the votes that he was trying to avoid.
In this case, what is uncertain is whether Johnson is buying time on the government shutdown, the Epstein files, or both.
Either way, something is very rotten, as the Speaker of the House, who has become increasingly sleazy during the government shutdown, is avoiding swearing in Grijalva.
Are the Epstein files why Grijalva hasn’t been sworn in? Share your thoughts in the comments below.