Chad Pergram, Fox News’ senior congressional correspondent, pressed Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Tuesday as to why Congresswoman-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) has still yet to be sworn in.

“You said last week that you would swear in Adelita Grijalva whenever she wants. She’s written a letter to your office. You’ve not sworn her in. I understand about pro forma sessions. Doesn’t your resistance to not swear her in add fuel to the fire that this is about the Epstein files?” Pergram asked.

“No. Let’s talk about Grijalva and Epstein. Okay, once more for everybody. Everybody in Congress, I think, is for maximum transparency of the Epstein files. That is underway right now. Let me point out before I go further: all of the files were in the possession of the Biden-Harris Department of Justice for four years. Every single thing that we’re talking about right now was in their sole possession,” Johnson replied, pivoting to attack the Democrats.

“They could have released it. They could’ve done anything. Ro Khanna, all the Democrats who are jumping up and down making noise about this, didn’t say a peep about it for four years. I don’t know why, but this is another partisan-manufactured thing,” Johnson continued, adding:

Is it a serious problem? Yes. I have sat with the victims—some of the ladies who bravely have come forward and talked about the horrors that they sustained because of traffickers on Epstein Island and all the things he was involved in. Everybody involved in that should have the full weight of justice descend upon their head, and we’re all for that. We want every single person who had anything to do with that to be exposed.

But there are, as many as a thousand victims estimated—that’s what the victims say. There may be a thousand women who were made to suffer these unspeakable harms because of this. Many of them were underage at the time. They have not all chosen to come forward, like some of these other brave women have, for obvious reasons, and we have to make sure that when the files are released, their names are redacted so they don’t suffer further harm. We have a duty and a responsibility.

You can’t just wave a wand and just open the floodgates. You have to be sure that the victims don’t suffer additional harm. That’s all we’ve said. Let’s make sure it’s done the right way.

Watch the clip above.