On Monday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries accused President Donald Trump and House Republicans of operating a “pedophile protection program.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to swear in the most recently elected member of Congress, Adelita Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat who has said she will join the bipartisan push to release government files on accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Jeffries was asked about Johnson’s inaction during a press conference.
“The Trump administration and Mike Johnson are running a pedophile protection program,” Jeffries said. “That’s the reason why they refuse to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva—for weeks now.”
Jeffries noted that Grijalva won a special election in Arizona’s 7th Congressional District in late September but still has not been sworn in “because she’ll become the 218th vote” in an ongoing bipartisan effort to force the Department of Justice to release its files on Epstein.
Before the most recent presidential election, Trump promised that if he won, he would release the Epstein files, including a rumored client list of his alleged sex-trafficking operation. Instead, his administration has stonewalled on the issue and has been aided in this by congressional Republicans.
Jeffries noted that Grijalva is being prevented from representing her district in Congress because of “the pedophile protection program being run by Mike Johnson and House Republicans at the direction of their boss, Donald J. Trump.”
Democratic Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva of Arizona, shown in October.
Due to the Johnson blockade, Grijalva has broken the record for the longest delay in seating a member after a special election—more than 40 days. Johnson has used the Republican-led government shutdown as an excuse to avoid swearing in the new congresswoman, but he has the power to swear her in at any time. Johnson previously swore in Republican lawmakers within 24 hours of their special elections.
Republican leadership has been trying to avoid a vote to force the Epstein disclosure. The dereliction of duty has occurred while reports indicate Trump’s name appears multiple times in the government’s Epstein files. This arrives after years of the right ostensibly campaigning against child sexual abuse.
Trump has made lewd comments about underaged girls and has faced accusations of walking in on teenage beauty contestants as they changed. Other Republicans, like Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, have been accused of turning a blind eye to child abuse, while former House Speaker Dennis Hastert was a convicted of crimes related to child molstation.
Now, once again, Republicans are weighing in on the side of abusers.
