The House Ethics Committee held a rare public hearing on Thursday into alleged ethics violations committed by Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida. According to House Ethics Committee investigators, Cherfilus-McCormick is facing numerous ethics charges, including failing to follow campaign finance laws, commingling campaign, personal and business funds, and using her position to benefit allies. According to federal prosecutors, she has been charged with allegedly stealing $5 million in COVID-19 disaster relief funds.
The allegations center on how she received millions of dollars from her family’s health care business after Florida mistakenly overpaid the business by roughly $5 million with COVID-19 disaster relief funds, and she is accused of using that money to fund her 2022 congressional campaign. House Ethics Committee investigators said their investigation collected a mountain of evidence that Cherfilus-McCormick committed the deeds alleged in the federal indictment.
Cherfilus-McCormick has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges. She argued to have the committee postpone its hearing until after the conclusion of the criminal trial or to hold the proceedings in private, but the subcommittee denied those requests. Multiple reports indicate she is resigning from Congress to avoid formal discipline by the House following an ethics investigation.
Cherfilus-McCormick denounced the internal inquiry as unfair in a social media post. According to Cherfilus-McCormick, the House Committee denied her and her new attorney adequate time to prepare a defense. She previously declined to testify during a previous Ethics Committee hearing, citing her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
The panel's two-year investigation led to the issuance of 59 subpoenas, 28 witness interviews, and a review of more than 33,000 pages of documents. It has been more than 15 years since a sitting member of the House faced a public ethics hearing, dating to the 2010 ethics trial of Rep. Charles Rangel. The House Ethics Committee was weighing what punishment to recommend for 25 violations of House rules and ethical standards, including breaking campaign finance laws.
Some Republican lawmakers are threatening a vote to expel Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick from the House. Rep. Greg Steube, a Florida Republican, has said he will move to expel Cherfilus-McCormick once the Ethics Committee makes a determination on what punishment it will recommend. A group of supporters in Cherfilus-McCormick's congressional district have weighed in on her behalf with the lawmakers who lead the Ethics Committee.
The exact timeline for her resignation from Congress and how it will be formalized remains unclear. It is also unknown what specific punishment the House Ethics Committee will recommend for Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick. The current status of the federal criminal trial against her and when it is scheduled has not been disclosed.