Adelita Grijalva kept her promise. At 4pm eastern time on Wednesday, he was sworn in as Arizona’s representative at the Capitol and minutes later signed a petition for Congress to vote on whether to release the secret Epstein case documents. It was just one signature away from getting the necessary 218 – a simple majority of the 435 members of the House of Representatives – to force the vote, and Grijalva wasted no time in adding it. His signature joins those of Democratic representatives and four Republicans who want all information to be revealed in the case of Jeffrey Epstein, the pedophile who ran a pedophilia ring who died in prison in 2019. Among the guests at Grijalva’s inauguration ceremony were some victims.
The congresswoman had to wait 50 days to access the seat won in the special elections of September 23 in Arizona, to fill the vacancy in the House of Representatives left by her father, Raúl Grijalva, who died last March. The president of Congress, Mike Johnson, refused to schedule the ceremony, arguing that the partial shutdown of the administration did not allow it. Democrats argue that the unprecedented delay was intended to prevent the Justice Department from revealing documents in the Epstein case and to harm President Donald Trump.
“With my signature, we are one step closer to the truth, the truth that they will try to deny, but that the survivors deserve and that the American people have asked for,” Grijalva declared in a press conference in the Capitol, supported by her colleagues from the Hispanic Caucus, which brings together Latin-Democratic deputies, and who welcomed her.
Trump was a personal friend of the pedophile, although he has always denied any links to the pedophilia ring run by Epstein. Plot documents made public Wednesday mention his name. Epstein said in a 2011 email to his friend and accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell – who is serving a 20-year sentence – that Trump “spent hours” at the financier’s home with one of his victims. “I want you to realize that the dog that hasn’t barked yet is Trump,” Epstein added in the message.
“A Latina with balls”
“It is shameful that the speaker of the House did not do his duty. He had no respect for the voters of any district. He was willing to bend to the wishes of the man in the White House to protect him and other criminals and pedophiles who may be involved in the dossiers,” said Texas congresswoman Sylvia García, who added that it took “a Latina with balls,” referring to Grijalva, to push the vote forward in Congress.
The delay in Grijalva’s swearing-in prompted a lawsuit by Arizona prosecutors against Johnson because he is “disenfranchising voters in Arizona’s 7th Congressional District” which includes 813,000 residents, U.S. Attorney Kris Mayes said in a statement.
Grijalva, 55, is originally from the city of Tucson, very close to the border with Sonora, Mexico. She was elected with nearly 70% of the vote in the special election to fill the seat of her father, a congressional veteran who worked on Capitol Hill for more than two decades leading social justice causes. His daughter Adelita was always involved in local politics and after his death wanted to take over.
In her speech after taking office, Grijalva, who announced that she will fight to defend migrants’ rights, as her father had done, said in Spanish: “Thank you very much, thank you very much (…) thank you very much for your support and your love,” underlining her family roots as the granddaughter of a day laborer and the daughter of someone who achieved the “American dream” and became a congressman.
In October he traveled to Washington to begin his job, but could not access his office nor did he have the budget to work, so he began a series of protests joined by Democratic lawmakers and some Republicans. Grijalva, who is the first Latina woman to represent Arizona in Congress, yesterday denounced the treatment she receives for her condition. “My inauguration was delayed 50 days, the longest delay in modern history. And let me be clear, if I were a Republican, I would not have waited that long. If I were a man, neither would I. We all know the rules are always different for women and people of color,” she said.
