We have a brand-new member of Congress. Her name is Adelita Grivalja, she was elected by the fine people of Arizona, and she was in Washington DC this week to be sworn in so she could start doing the people’s work.
That swearing in is typically done by the Speaker of the House, who for the moment is the walking jellyfish we all know as Congressman Mike Johnson. This puts Johnson is a very difficult spot, mostly because of the fact he got his job by agreeing to never do anything Trump dislikes … and Trump does not want this new member of Congress for one very specific reason.
Democrats in the House have managed to get a few republicans to cross the aisle to support a legislative maneuver called a discharge petition. A discharge petition is a parliamentary maneuver that can force a bill to the House floor for a vote. Once that petition gets 218 votes, it will be used to put significant pressure on Trump and the GOP to release the Epstein files. The petition has 217 votes. Congresswoman Grivalja has promised to be the 218th vote, and that’s why the Speaker won’t swear her in, and it’s also not at all out of line to say that Epstein might be the biggest reason why the government just shut down. No one is going to be sworn in until the government opens again, so we should prepare for a long shutdown filled with lies about why it’s all happening.
“I can’t think of any other reason. It’s not like my being sworn in changes the majority,” she said.
“The House will come back into session and do its work as soon as Chuck Schumer allows us to reopen the government,” Johnson said, referring to the top Senate Democrat whom the Republicans blame for the funding lapse.”
Now, in all this political drama, it is important to know that even if the petition gets 218 votes, and even if Congress does indeed pass a law forcing the release of the Epstein files, they likely still won’t be released. Trump has defied the law for his entire life, and he’s not going to stop now. That said, once these votes happen as they eventually will, public pressure to release the files will be greater than ever, and every news cycle for weeks will start and end with Jeffrey Epstein. And no matter how many drug boats he blows up, or how many military leaders he embarrasses himself in front of, or how many former FBI directors he arrests, Trump won’t be able to get away from his own past forever.
That said, he is certainly going to try, and anyone who has paid any attention at all over the last ten years knows that when it comes to keeping his secrets, there is literally nothing Trump won’t do. No law he won’t break, and no freedom he won’t attack.
Because that’s just what predators do.
Brett Pransky is a writer, a teacher, a father, and a husband, but rarely in that order. He spends his days amplifying the voices of freedom and democracy as an Editor right here at The Political Voices Network, and he spends his nights trying to fix the world one clever sentence at a time.
😱SCARY for repukes maybe!