Jesus Dork Speaker of the House Mike Johnson walked into Dem Arizona Senators Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly’s mini-press conference in the Capitol to walk back on his Tuesday statement that Congresswoman-Elect Adelita Grijalva can be sworn in “whenever she wants” to when the government is reopened, Semafor’s Burgess Everett reports. Sur-fucking-prise on that and the part where Johnson said it had “nothing to do with Epstein,” as in Grijalva being the 218th signatory on Republican Congressman Thomas Massie’s discharge petition to force the Epstein files vote.

Now I need to make a correction too: In yesterday’s article I had expressed some puzzlement over why Dems were making as big a deal out of the nexus to the discharge petition as they are, and thought this was simply political messaging. It’s not like forcing the Republicans on the record as voting against the compelled release of the files isn’t political messaging in itself because then it has to go to the Senate, but that’s an important win no matter what. Where I fucked off is not doing my research on how House discharge petitions work and what happens when Grijalva is sworn in and signs it: That actually is a point of no return. The discharge petition is officially entered into the Congressional record on the 218th signature and the vote becomes inevitable. Johnson can screw around and delay it through an array of other tricks, but that’ll push it back a few months at most.

Unless Crazy Nancy Mace and/or Lauren Boebert can be talked into backing out – Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene obviously aren’t up for grabs – swearing in Grijalva is for Johnson like signing the discharge petition himself. Whether buying himself more time works has yet to be seen (and of course Boebert and Mace could just vote no) but he’s buying it by holding out.