WASHINGTON — After more than six hours, members of the House Ethics Committee on Thursday night concluded a rare public hearing focused on a sitting member of Congress.
The hearing centered on the panel's investigation into Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., who was indicted on charges she stole millions in federal relief funds and used the money to bankroll her congressional campaign.
Following the marathon meeting, committee members huddled behind closed doors to deliberate the case and determine whether their colleague is guilty of violating House rules. Committee chair Michael Guest, R-Miss., said the panel will announce its findings in a statement.
Cherfilus-McCormick, who appeared at Thursday's hearing but did not speak, has consistently denied all allegations of wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty in her criminal case.
If she is found guilty of violating House rules, the Ethics Committee could recommend her censure, reprimand, removal from committees or even expulsion from the House.
“I am deeply disappointed the Committee chose to move forward with this trial while denying my legal team reasonable time to prepare. That raises serious concerns about due process and the fundamental rights every American is entitled to under our Constitution," Cherfilus-McCormick said in a statement Thursday.
"I welcome the opportunity to set the record straight and challenge these inaccuracies, when I am legally able to do so," she continued. "Make no mistake: I am innocent and I am a fighter. My district is made up of fighters. I will continue to fight for the people I was elected to serve.”
Such Ethics meetings are typically conducted in private. But the committee decided to bring this issue out into the open — the House’s version of a court trial — due to the fact that she has decided to fight the allegations rather than resign, and the ethics case is moving faster than the judicial system.
Thursday’s televised hearing is what’s known as an "adjudicatory" subcommittee hearing, and the lawmakers who participated have been tasked with determining if any of the alleged violations by Cherfilus-McCormick have been proven by the monthslong Ethics Committee investigation.
At the start of the hearing, Cherfilus-McCormick's attorney, William Barzee, asked the committee to delay the hearing or continue behind closed doors until after the congresswoman's criminal trial has wrapped up. He also said he signed onto the case a few weeks ago and needed more time to prepare.
“How can she possibly go into court and have a fair trial if her jurors have already heard that she was found guilty by the House of Representatives? It’s an impossibility,” Barzee argued to the committee.
The criminal trial is set to begin in April, but Barzee acknowledged it could be delayed until summer or fall.
A committee staffer responded during the hearing by saying the Justice Department had not requested the House proceedings be deferred. The staffer also said it's not certain the trial would happen anytime soon.
"There is no guarantee respondent’s criminal trial will take place this year or soon thereafter," Ray Rhatican, counsel for the Ethics panel, told lawmakers.
After a closed-door session, the lawmakers denied Cherfilus-McCormick's request to delay the House proceedings. The special subcommittee then began hearing the substance of the case.
The Justice Department indicted Cherfilus-McCormick in November on charges that she stole and laundered $5 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funding. Her family's health care company, Trinity Healthcare Services, had been working with FEMA through a Covid-19 vaccination contract, but then received a $5 million overpayment. The Justice Department alleged she and her brother never paid it back, routed it through multiple accounts and then used it to fund her successful 2022 special election campaign.
"Respondent and her siblings funneled more than $500,000 originating from Trinity into various outside organizations that made expenditures on behalf of the campaign," said Sydney Bellwoar, senior counsel for the Ethics panel.
Bellwoar said "the most egregious example" of the scheme occurred on June 23, 2021, when Trinity transferred $2 million directly to Cherfilus-McCormick, who then moved the money to her campaign the next day to make her campaign appear strong. After the end of the filing period, on July 2, counsel said, Cherfilus-McCormick "returned the money to herself nearly in full."
Barzee, the congresswoman's attorney, argued that if the Ethics panel is moving forward with a trial, he should be able to call his own witnesses and cross-examine the committee's witnesses.
"You have to allow me to call witnesses on her defense. You have to let me cross examine witnesses that staff put up. You can’t just decide this on the paper," Barzee said.
"I need to be able to to see witnesses; she has a right to confront those witnesses. I have to be able to cross examine people," he continued. "We do not accept the facts as they are alleged by staff."
The House Ethics Committee — which is made up of an equal number of Republicans and Democrats — had been conducting its own investigation of the congresswoman since 2023, after the nonpartisan Office of Congressional Ethics said the committee should probe the matter.
In December, the Ethics investigative subcommittee tasked with investigating Cherfilus-McCormick adopted its Statement of Alleged Violations against the Florida Democrat. It detailed 27 counts in which the subcommittee determined there was “substantial reason to believe” that she violated House rules, regulations or the law.
The investigative subcommittee “reviewed over 33,000 documents totaling hundreds of thousands of pages of materials and conducted 28 witness interviews” before making its determination. In January, the Ethics panel formed a separate, special adjudicatory subcommittee to evaluate the other subcommittee’s findings.
The Ethics Committee, whose members have the difficult task of investigating and judging their own peers, is known for its secrecy. It’s very uncommon that the details of an ethics probe would be discussed out in the open.
Since 1991, there have only been four instances of the committee reaching the adjudicatory subcommittee stage. And there have only ever been two completed adjudicatory hearings, according to the committee.
The most recent was a 2010 televised hearing focused on the ethics investigation into then-Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., the once-powerful Ways and Means Committee chairman who had been stripped of his gavel amid a two-year probe into his personal finances.
Rangel appeared at his House trial, but he didn’t stay long after lamenting that he hadn’t been given enough time to find new counsel. A special Ethics subcommittee found Rangel guilty on 11 of 13 charges. The House subsequently voted to censure him, and he continued to serve in Congress until his retirement in 2017.
Democratic leaders are letting the process play out. When Republicans threatened to expel her in January, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Cherfilus-McCormick was "entitled to the presumption of innocence."
"She's going through the process right now, and any effort to expel her lacks any basis, at this moment, in law, fact or the Constitution," Jeffries said.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said he also is not rushing to judgment, though he suggested it looks bad for Cherfilus-McCormick.
"Look, I believe in due process; we’re intellectually consistent on that. We’re waiting for the developments," Johnson told reporters before the hearing.
"This is a very serious matter. I think even many Democrats ... have publicly said that the evidence is so stark and irrefutable that it’s almost presumed guilt," he said. "But we have to process this internally and see how this goes."
