[FoxNews] House Ethics panel finds embattled Rep Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick guilty of 25 violations
A bipartisan panel of House lawmakers voted to kickstart a process that could lead to the expulsion of a congressional Democrat accused of laundering millions of disaster relief funds into her campaign account.
A House Ethics investigative subcommittee approved a motion for summary judgment, effectively finding Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., guilty of nearly all alleged violations outlined by the committee earlier this year.
The verdict came after a rare public ethics hearing on Thursday — the first since 2010 — that lasted more than six hours as lawmakers from both parties grilled Cherfilus-McCormick’s counsel. The eight-member adjudicatory subcommittee, helmed by Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., announced its decision in a written statement Friday morning.
"After careful deliberation that lasted until well past midnight, the adjudicatory subcommittee found that Counts 1-15 and 17-26 of the SAV [statement of alleged violations] had been proven," committee leaders said in a statement.
The panel’s myriad charges against Cherfilus-McCormick, who is facing a separate federal criminal indictment, ranged from using ineligible funds to finance her campaign to repeatedly filing false financial disclosure forms and seeking "special favors" with recipients of earmark funding requests.
The panel will meet after the Easter recess to determine its recommended punishment, which could be as severe as expulsion. Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., has vowed to move forward with his resolution that would expel Cherfilus-McCormick regardless of the outcome.
Under House rules, two-thirds of lawmakers have to agree to expel a member, meaning Steube’s resolution would need the support of some Democrats.
House Democratic leadership has largely stood by Cherfilus-McCormick so far, though some congressional Democrats are signaling their discomfort with the allegations against their indicted colleague.
"The allegations before us are extremely serious," Rep. Mark Desaulnier, D-Calif., said at the start of the hearing Thursday. "They not only concern an individual member’s conduct, they also implicate the public’s confidence in the House’s integrity as an institution."
Cherfilus-McCormick, who first won election to Congress in 2021, is accused of stealing more than $5 million in disaster relief funds that were improperly paid to her family’s healthcare company, among other criminal allegations. She and her siblings allegedly used the illicit funds to jumpstart her congressional campaign and for personal use, including the purchase of a large diamond ring that Cherfilus-McCormick appeared to have worn in her official congressional portrait.
Cherfilus-McCormick has pleaded not guilty to the stunning federal charges brought in 2025. If convicted in federal court, Cherfilus-McCormick, 47, faces up to 53 years in prison.
The House ethics panel’s investigation into Cherfilus-McCormick preceded the 2025 federal criminal indictment by more than two years. During that time, Cherfilus-McCormick shifted between four different attorneys while largely refusing to cooperate with the bipartisan panel.
On Thursday, Cherfilus-McCormick sought to use the fact of her new legal representation to further delay the committee’s proceedings until June — a request the eight-member panel promptly denied in a closed-door session. Her new attorney, William Barzee, repeatedly claimed a violation of Cherfilus-McCormick’s due process rights while maintaining her innocence.
"For you to sit here and make the claim that we, the committee, is trying to trample upon the rights of your client. I take offense to that," Guest told Barzee in a combative exchange. "For two years we've tried to get documents from your client. Not only have we requested documents, but we have subpoenaed those documents. Those documents were not provided for two years."
"I'm personally offended because I know the work that this committee goes to protect all members and to make sure that we go above and beyond," Guest continued.
Members of both parties appeared unconvinced by Barzee’s argument, attempting to claim that Cherfilus-McCormick was entitled to the millions of dollars she accepted from her family’s company that stemmed from the FEMA overpayments.
When he claimed that an undated chart was evidence of a "profit-sharing agreement" showing her legal title to the money, the bipartisan panel appeared visibly perturbed.
"I did a lot of business transaction law for a number of years before I came to Congress. I drafted a lot of profit-sharing agreements. Never saw one that was just a chart that was unsigned," Rep. Nathaniel Moran, R-Texas, told Barzee.
Later in the hearing, Barzee argued that because Cherfilus-McCormick is of Haitian descent, it was not atypical to have a "handshake agreement" to divvy up millions of dollars between her and her family instead of a formal legal document.
Cherfilus-McCormick faces an upcoming federal criminal trial this summer.
I believe that transgenderism is by its very nature a Stealth Strategy
A tipping point has been reached in their moral crusade, but not in the direction they’d hoped. The retreat is visibly accelerating, as payouts for the pain and suffering resulting from bad medical advice accumulate, and while those who were merely posturing will quietly pair themselves off with the normies of their choice, never to mention that embarrassing youthful experiment again, the gullible neurotics and the autistic who went for treatments will be discarded as no longer useful idiots.
[Breitbart] Progressives must retreat back to basics before they can quietly advance the cause of transgenderism, says one of the early advocates for government support of the revolutionary movement.
“We must continue to grow and expand the coalition of Americans who see dignity and equal protection for trans people as paramount,” says a March 19 advocacy article by Mara Keisling, a progressive who founded the National Center for Transgender Equality in 2003.
This strategy shift recognizes that progressives’ support for transgenderism has damaged progressives’ many other causes, most obviously by helping President Donald Trump win the 2024 election.
Keisling admitted:
This means shifting our primary focus to education
….going for a March Through the Institutions, Gramsci style. But it will become a standard background investigation point, along with pedophilia and general criminal record stuff, because nobody wants that near their children…
while continuing to try to enshrine core civil rights protections into statute. On issues such as sports participation and kids’ access to health care, we should accept that we have more work to do to win hearts and minds, and focus on pursuing the smartest possible approach to bring more Americans over to our side.
Elected leaders and candidates should focus their efforts on how to protect and defend trans people, not using the issue for messaging purposes or purity tests. Instead of contemplating message bills, they should focus on keeping pernicious anti-trans policy riders out of must-pass legislation and building a broader coalition for locking in key non-discrimination protections.
However, it is not clear that progressives can retreat from the lost cause of transgenderism without first being directed to a replacement target for their promiscuous empathy.
Many progressives are pro-transgender zealots or use transgenderism to display their claims of moral superiority over what they regard as simplistic conservatives in President Donald Trump’s GOP. This desire is often triggered by Democrats seeking to motivate progressives during primaries, so giving the GOP candidate a talking point in the election.
Also, the establishment GOP has learned what conservatives felt: You can win elections by showing Democrats as people whose paramount cause is putting men into girls’ sports, bathrooms, and private lives.
Transgenderism is both revolutionary and totalitarian. It demands that the government enforce each individual’s claim to have a male or female feeling — dubbed “gender identity” — regardless of the reality that two biological sexes are fixed, equal, different, and complementary.
In practice, this ideology demands that any man be escorted by the FBI into women’s societies — changing rooms or sports teams, for example — whenever he wishes. That government-enabled power would allow a tiny minority to destroy the authority of both sexes to build institutions tailored for their benefit and preferences.
Keisling’s call for retreat cites a recent poll by the left-wing Searchlight Institute, which showed decent sympathy for the freedom of transgender adults, deep concern for children who are swayed by transgender claims, plus a broad, non-consensus dislike of the transgender ideology.
For example, the poll showed that 70 percent of respondents — including 55 percent of Trump’s 2024 voters — say “transgender people should be able to live their lives free from discrimination and bullying.”
But this widespread sympathy does not translate into support for transgenderism. The poll showed that roughly 50 percent of the respondents prioritize “safety” for people who insist they are transgender. But half of the 50 percent also said, “You can protect transgender people by acknowledging their gender identity.”
Just 32 percent of the pro-safety group said that “ensuring safety for transgender people means supporting their gender identity.”
The poll tried to maximize apparent support for people who claim to be transgender — but failed in nearly every question.
Single-sex sports are backed by 59 percent to 20 percent, and single-sex K-12 bathrooms are backed by 59 percent to 23 percent. Just 26 percent said school should hide “child questions about their gender identity at school,” while 55 percent said parents should be informed.
Gender-related surgery for minors is opposed 74 percent to 8 percent, while non-surgical interventions are opposed by 67 percent to 12 percent.
The number flipped when the poll asked about adults. Sixty-eight percent support “gender transition services” for adults, while just 17 percent oppose the option.
People who claim to be transgender get significantly stronger support from women than from men. For example, when asked to rate the importance of safety for “transgender adults,” 50 percent of men but 67 percent of women rate safety as “very important.” Overall, just 12 percent rate safety as “not at all important.”
Unsurprisingly, many polls show that transgender advocates have lost public support since 2016, amid full-throated support by most journalists.
The Searchlight Institute polled a sample of 1,526 likely voters from February 18-19, with a margin of error of 3.7 percent.
[NYPost] Secret Service agent shoots himself in leg while escorting Jill Biden at Philadelphia International Airport
A Secret Service agent shot and wounded himself in the leg while guarding former first lady Jill Biden at Philadelphia International Airport on Friday, according to the agency and a report.
The on-duty agent’s gun went off around 8:30 a.m. while helping escort former President Joe Biden’s wife at the busy travel hub, sources told KYW Newsradio.
The agent suffered a non-life-threatening injury following the “negligent discharge” that took place while he was handling his service weapon, said Secret Service spokesperson Nate Herring.
[NewsMax] Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he is considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2028.
In an interview with "CBS Sunday Morning," scheduled to air Sunday, Paul said, "We're thinking about it. I would say 50-50."
In the interview, Paul discussed what he described as changes within the Republican Party.
"There used to really be a free market/libertarian wing of the party, and now there's not much left," Paul said.
"In fact, on many days, it's me in the Senate, the only one left for free trade." So dreamy! So Mavericky!
"But I think there still is a desire among business for it, and it may make the so-called libertarian vote — which might not be big enough to ever win anything — if you combine that with the Chamber of Commerce and the traditional business community that doesn't like protectionism, there may be a force out there for a different direction from the party other than being continued to be led by populism," Paul added.
Paul said he expects to make a final decision after the 2026 midterm elections.
He previously ran for president in 2016 but ended his campaign after the Iowa caucuses.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
03/28/2026 10:29 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Rand is a set of pans that you bought thinking that they looked high quality and useful infomercial. Then you realize that the quality is poor and all to accessories just clutter up your cabinet. Then you realize that every set of them eventually ends up at the flea market and you could have got them cheaper there. Then you realize that free would still be overpaying for low quality stuff that gets in your way. Rand should probably cease sending me email solicitations.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/28/2026 10:37 Comments ||
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#3
Run as the 'Nobody Agrees With Me' candidate?
Posted by: ed in texas ||
03/28/2026 12:44 Comments ||
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#4
^ Then the stick proof coating begins to flake off and you realize your terminal cancer is likely from the Chinese micro-plastics.
Too late you turn to the full transparency of Corning glassware.
[WND] In a move that is stunning even for a leftist Democrat like Pramila Jayapal, she is demanding the government, which has no money of its own of course, take money from taxpayers and give it to illegal aliens.
For being illegal aliens.
Moms and pops working 9-to-5s, she apparently believes, should give up their wages so that illegal aliens, including criminals, gang members and terrorists, are adequately compensated for the discomfort of being illegal aliens.
#5
Not stunning, she knows it will never pass. Just another Congress Creature pushing a bill that's unlikely to even make out of committee, much less pass. Now she can go back to her district, which I am sure is composed of only people legally allowed to vote and say that 'I tried'
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[FoxNews] House Ethics panel finds embattled Rep Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick guilty of 25 violations
[NewsMax] Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he is considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2028.
