Congress is set to vote on forcing Donald Trump‘s Justice Department to release the Epstein files.
It comes as Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva was sworn in to the U.S. House of Representatives by Republican Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday afternoon, seven weeks after being elected to replace the seat previously held by her now deceased father.
Her swearing-in, which occurred 50 days after her election, faced delays due to the House of Representatives being out of session during the government shutdown that has been ongoing for the past 43 days.
However, if you ask some House Democrats, including Grijalva, the real reason for the delay was much more nefarious.
Grijalva became the final signature on a petition to release government files related to Jeffrey Epstein as a few of his victims looked on from the House gallery, delivering on a key campaign promise minutes after she was sworn in as a member of Congress.
In a Tuesday interview with MSNBC’s The Weeknight, Grivalva noted that ‘nobody, no member-elect should ever be in the situation again where 813,000 people are silenced because one person wants to play politics with their swearing-in.’
Grijalva also told MSNBC that she believed her swearing-in was delayed ‘to give Speaker Johnson more time in order to try to convince one of those four Republicans to take their name off’ the discharge petition to release the Epstein files.
The petition, put forth by California Democrat Ro Khanna and Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie, is currently backed by every Democrat in the House, as well as three female Republicans, Marjorie Taylor-Greene of Georgia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, and Lauren Boebert of Colorado.
Trump himself has been working to whip Republicans, namely Boebert and Mace, on Wednesday to remove their names from the petition.
Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) listens during a press conference weeks into the continuing U.S. government shutdown, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 21, 2025
Adelita Grijalva speaks on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives after being sworn in by House Speaker Mike Johnson, 50 days after she was elected to her seat in September
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., speaks during a news conference regarding the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025, in Washington.
From left, American real estate developer Donald Trump and his girlfriend (and future wife), former model Melania Knauss, financier (and future convicted sex offender) Jeffrey Epstein, and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell pose together at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 2000
Trump was known to have associated with Epstein in the early 2000s.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released on Wednesday emails subpoenaed from the Jeffrey Epstein estate, which include mentions of President Trump by name.
Meanwhile, Republicans on the House Oversight committee called the release by their Democrat colleagues ‘cherry-picked’ to generate clickbait.
Speaking to reporters in Kentucky the day after Grejalva’s election, Massie noted that ‘last night, there was a special election in Arizona. I have 217 signatures. I need 218 signatures to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files in the House. And last night, I both of the candidates on the ballot promised to sign my discharge petition, and one of them won, obviously, and so now we’re going to have 218 signatures, and we’re going to force a vote on releasing those files.’
Grijalva, 55, was elected in September to replace her late father, former Representative Raul Grijalva who died in March at the age of 77.
The elder Grijalva served in Congress for over 20 years before his death, and was formerly a member of the Pima County Board of Supervisors, an office also occupied by his daughter before she was elected to Congress in September.
The House is expected to pass a package to fund the government in the next few hours.
