MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell suggests a controversial deal to end the government shutdown could have an unanticipated bright side and bring America a step closer to learning the truth about late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his rumored clients.
The “Last Word” host argued Monday that despite a few Senate Democrats voting Sunday with Republicans to end the shutdown, infuriating their colleagues and many others, it’s actually the Republicans who have to fall in line by agreeing to the new deal.
O’Donnell noted that the reversal will force House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) “to bring all of his Republican House members back and all of them have to change their positions.”
“When Mike Johnson does that, the Epstein files come back to life in the House of Representatives,” O’Donnell said, “because when Mike Johnson convenes the House of Representatives, he will have to swear in the newest elected member … Adelita Grijalva of Arizona.”
“She will then immediately become the 218th signature on a discharge petition that will force a vote of the House of Representatives on releasing the Epstein files, a vote Mike Johnson fears more than any vote ever cast during his speakership,” O’Donnell continued.
Grijalva was elected to Arizona’s 7th Congressional District in September, but Johnson has refused to swear the Democrat in until the House is back in session, despite having previously sworn in two Republican House members during similar circumstances.
Democrats have accused Johnson of delaying the proceeding because Grijalva would be the key vote in a bipartisan petition to release information on Epstein, who died while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges and once called Trump his “closest friend.”
“That is why Mike Johnson closed down the House of Representatives and gave every Republican in the House a paid vacation for the last seven weeks,” O’Donnell said Monday. “Fear, abject fear of the Epstein files, where we know Donald Trump’s name has to appear.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi, who vowed in February to release the files, told Trump in May that his name is prominently featured in them, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Trump has since called the public’s interest in the files a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats.
O’Donnell concluded the segment by discussing a letter Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) sent to Trump on Sunday.
Raskin admonished Trump for refusing to release the Epstein files despite campaigning on their release, and charged that the president had lied about his signature on a bizarre birthday note to the sex offender and hampered the Justice Department from investigating.