House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Monday went after President Trump and Republican leaders over the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, saying their refusal to press for the release of the government files on the late child sex offender is tantamount to protecting pedophiles.
Jeffries pointed specifically to Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) decision not to seat Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D) as evidence of his charge. Grijalva had won a special election in Arizona on Sept. 23 and is vowing to be the deciding signature on a discharge petition designed to force the Justice Department to release the undisclosed Epstein documents — whenever she’s sworn in.
"The Trump administration and Mike Johnson are running a pedophile protection program,” Jeffries told reporters in the Capitol. “That's what they've been doing, and that's the reason why they refuse to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, for weeks now.”
Johnson has repeatedly rejected those accusations. He says the better strategy for getting to the bottom of Epstein’s associations is through the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which launched a probe months ago and has already released thousands of files from both the DOJ and the Epstein estate.
The Speaker says he’s not seating Grijalva because the House, which he’s kept on recess since Sept. 20, is not operating in normal session during the government shutdown. When the shutdown ends, and House lawmakers return to Washington, Johnson says he’ll then seat Grijalva with all the “pomp” she deserves.
Grijalva, for her part, says she doesn’t want the pomp, she wants to be sworn in during one of the procedural sessions, known as pro formas, that have occurred every three days throughout the shutdown. Johnson had used a pro forma session to seat two House Republicans in April after they won special elections in Florida.
Democrats say the distinction has everything to do with Epstein.
“She was elected in late September, decisively,” Jeffries said Monday. “And Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva still hasn't been sworn in, because she'll become the 218th vote on an up-or-down piece of legislation that will require the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files.”
Although Epstein died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges related to child sex trafficking, the interest in his case took off during the 2024 presidential campaign when prominent Trump supporters aired their theories that the government was shielding a host of wealthy, powerful elites who had associated with Epstein — and might have committed crimes with minors.
Trump had given voice to those concerns, saying he would release the files if was elected to a second term. And his appointment of Pam Bondi as U.S. attorney general and Kash Patel as FBI director fueled hopes among the MAGA faithful that the documents would be unveiled quickly this year. Bondi, in February, said she had Epstein’s “client list” on her desk for review.
Trump, however, had his own associations with Epstein decades ago. And Bondi, after taking charge of the DOJ this year, told Trump that his name appears in the undisclosed files, according to The Wall Street Journal.
More recently, the DOJ issued an unsigned memo saying the department had reviewed the Epstein case exhaustively, and found no evidence that anyone but Epstein and his longtime girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who’s serving a 20-year prison term for charges related to the sex trafficking of minors, should be charged in the case.
The memo infuriated many of Trump’s supporters, who said they felt betrayed by the reversal. Trump responded by saying he doesn’t need their support — and the case is closed.
To compel the DOJ to release the files, Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) have teamed up on legislation to force the administration’s hand. Because Johnson and Trump oppose the bill, GOP leaders won’t bring it to the floor.
Khanna and Massie have sought to go around that blockade with a discharge petition, which will force the vote over the objections of GOP leaders if it can secure the endorsement of 218 lawmakers — a simple majority of the House.
The petition currently has 217 signatures, including four Republicans.
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