‘Zero to Do With Epstein’: Johnson Gives New Reason Why He Hasn’t Sworn in New Democrat

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) joined C-SPAN’s Washington Journal on Thursday morning and took questions from callers. While much of the discussion focused on the shutdown, Johnson at one point addressed the ongoing questions surrounding why he has yet to swear in Congresswoman-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ).

“In regard to Rep-elect Grijalva, she was elected in a special election to fill her father’s seat. That’s a great achievement. We applaud her. I look forward to administering the oath of office to her to make her an official member of the House as soon as we get back to regular session. Right now, Chuck Schumer holds the cards on when that can happen because he is the one that has shut down the government, and that is a problem,” Johnson said.

Johnson’s remarks marked a stark departure from a claim he made earlier in the week. On Tuesday, Johnson told CNN’s Manu Raju about the swearing-in, “We’ll schedule it, I guess, as soon as she wants. We’re in a pro forma session because there is nothing for the House to do. The House has done its job.”

C-SPAN’s Mimi Geerges followed up, asking, “And Mr. Speaker, there were two others that you did swear in during pro forma sessions. Why won’t you do it this time?”

“Great question. So this was brought up yesterday. Well, you had these two Floridians who you did in a pro forma session when not everyone was there. Why wouldn’t you do that for Rep. Grijalva? Very important question,” Johnson replied, adding:

The simple answer is those two Floridians had pre-scheduled a date for their oath of office. So they had all their family and friends and supporters fly into town. Everybody was here. The House unexpectedly went out of session. And so as a courtesy to them and their families, we went ahead and administered the oath to an empty chamber. It was no fun.

They didn’t get the same pomp and circumstance everybody else gets. The difference between them and Rep-elect Grijalva is that her election was secured after the House was out of session. So there was no pre-scheduled date. We don’t have family and friends in town. In fact, there’s no one here. It’s like a ghost town. So we’re going to administer her oath as soon as we get back. This has zero to do with Epstein.

Johnson mentioned Jeffrey Epstein at the end of his remarks, as Rep-elect Grijalva would be the final vote needed for a bipartisan vote to push the House to force the release of the Epstein files to the public.

Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.