A statue of President Donald Trump and the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unveiled Sept. 23, 2025, on the National Mall in Washington, DC. It's the Secret Handshake's third such anti-Trump installation since June.

The U.S. House's 7th District in Arizona is held by one of the 435 elected representatives in this country.

But a special election there on Sept. 23 tilted that chamber toward yet another showdown in President Donald Trump's desperate bid to keep America from seeing the Epstein files.

U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, and U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, have 217 signatures from House members backing their bipartisan legislation that calls for U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to release the Department of Justice's files on Jeffrey Epstein. The billionaire was once a bon vivant buddy for Trump before he pleaded guilty in 2008 on Florida charges of soliciting and procuring a person under 18 for prostitution.

Massie and Khanna need just one more signature on their discharge petition to force a vote in the House.

The Democratic nominee in Arizona's special election, Adelita Grijalva, prevailed as expected in her bid to win the seat held by her father, the late U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, until his death in March.

She's eager to sign, telling me this in an email on Election Day: "If elected, on my very first day in Congress, I’ll sign the bipartisan discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files. This is as much about fulfilling Congress’ duty as a constitutional check on this administration as it is about demanding justice for survivors. The days of turning a blind eye to Trump must end."

Arizona may give Congress the vote it needs to force the release of Epstein files

Daniel Butierez, the Republican nominee in Arizona's special election, also had pledged to sign the petition if he were elected.

So Massie and Khanna would have gotten to 218 signatures either way. And that's a new headache for House Speaker Mike Johnson, the Louisiana Republican who has done everything in his power – following every order Trump gives him – to shut down real congressional scrutiny for the Epstein files.

Remember when Johnson shut down the House early on July 22 for a six-week summer recess to get his story straight on why he and Trump were attempting to stifle calls to release the Epstein files?

It came about the time news broke that the attorney general had told Trump in May his name was mentioned multiple times in the Department of Justice's files about Epstein.

Summer break is long over. And the Epstein scandal has not gone away. It even followed Trump across the Atlantic Ocean during his recent state visit to the United Kingdom.

So what does the House speaker do now to shield the president from scrutiny and whatever terrifies him in the Epstein files?

Trump can't run from his Epstein problem. But a shutdown wouldn't hurt.

Epstein, who died by suicide in federal prison in 2019 during Trump's first term while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, has haunted Trump's second term. And Trump deserves it.

Trump promised while running for reelection in 2024 to release the Epstein files. And then, after winning, he put a pair of Epstein files conspiracy theorists in charge at the FBI, where they have floundered and embarrassed themselves.

The Massie-Khanna petition has been sitting in the House Rules Committee for three weeks. Johnson could try to bring pressure on that committee to kill it.

But U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, the North Carolina Republican who chairs that committee, told Politico in a brief Sept. 2 interview that she would not squelch the petition. A week later, though, Foxx helped vote down an amendment that would have forced the House to release the Epstein files before the discharge petition had 218 signatures.

So the Epstein scandal spotlight will now shine on Foxx as we wait to see what she does.

But first, Arizona's new representative for the 7th District House seat must be sworn into office. The state will need to certify the results of the special election and send them to the Clerk of the House to set in motion the oath of office.

That could take days or weeks. In three previous special elections in 2025 for House seats – two in Florida, one in Virginia – the winners were sworn in one day after their victories.

And the winner faces an uncertain future in the House, which may be closed in a government shutdown in a week, when funding for the government expires at midnight Sept. 30.

Democratic leaders in Congress on Sept. 20 demanded a meeting with Trump to negotiate a continuing resolution to keep funding the government, after he ordered Republican leaders in Congress to box them out of that process. Trump responded that same day that he'd "love to meet with them" but didn't expect "any impact."

On Election Day in Arizona, however, Trump changed his tune completely in a 423-word meandering social media post where he laid out a lengthy and predictable list of grievances while declaring that he would not meet with Democrats.

Hmm. A government shutdown could delay the swearing in of a newly elected representative who promises to provide the final signature needed for a petition to force the House to vote on releasing the Epstein files.

Is it any wonder Trump doesn't want to negotiate with Democrats about keeping our government up and running?

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why a special election in Arizona is bad news for Trump on the Epstein files | Opinion

Reporting by Chris Brennan, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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