A special panel of the bipartisan House Ethics Committee determined Friday that Florida Democrat Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick violated House rules on 25 of 27 counts, finding "clear and convincing evidence" on each.
ABC News reported that the panel's deliberations, which followed a rare public hearing Thursday, lasted until well past midnight.
Ethics Chairman Michael Guest confirmed the outcome Friday morning:
"We had a good, robust discussion on all counts, voted on all counts, and we were able to find agreement on 25 of the 27 counts."
The full House Ethics Committee will now hold a sanctions hearing after the April congressional recess to decide what punishment to recommend. The options range from censure to expulsion. Expulsion would require a two-thirds majority vote of the full House.
The ethics case runs alongside a separate and far more consequential legal threat. In November, a federal grand jury indicted Cherfilus-McCormick, 46, on charges of stealing $5 million in FEMA funds.
The indictment alleges that she and her brother, Edwin Cherfilus, 51, received a $5 million overpayment in FEMA funds directed to their family health care company through a 2021 contract for COVID-19 vaccination staffing. Prosecutors allege the funds were then laundered to support her 2021 congressional campaign.
She pleaded not guilty to the federal charges.
During Thursday's hearing, Cherfilus-McCormick did not address the committee. She took notes and occasionally talked to her attorney, William Barzee. Barzee demanded his client receive a full hearing but acknowledged she "made a lot of mistakes" on financial forms.
Guest pushed back on the request and noted that Cherfilus-McCormick has refused to cooperate with the panel's ongoing investigation.
Cherfilus-McCormick released a statement framing the proceedings as a due process failure:
"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."
She followed with a more defiant message:
"I welcome the opportunity to set the record straight and challenge these inaccuracies, when I am legally able to do so. 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."
The "fighter" language is familiar. It's the same rhetorical playbook every cornered politician reaches for when the facts stop cooperating.
The adjudicatory subcommittee itself was composed of three Republicans and three Democrats, which means Democrats on the panel voted to find their own colleague guilty on most counts. That makes House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries's posture all the more revealing.
Speaking to reporters on February 2, Jeffries drew a hard line against expulsion:
"Congresswoman Cherfilus-McCormick is entitled to the presumption of innocence, like every other American."
"I'm a hard no as it relates to the effort to expel her, and it's going to fail."
Presumption of innocence is a legal standard for criminal trials. It has nothing to do with whether a legislative body holds its own members accountable for violating its own rules. A bipartisan panel just found clear and convincing evidence on 25 counts. Jeffries isn't invoking a principle. He's deploying a talking point to shield a political ally.
Consider the contrast. When former New York GOP Rep. George Santos was expelled in 2023 over using campaign dollars for personal enrichment, Democrats didn't agonize over presumptions of innocence.
Santos became the last member expelled and only the sixth representative ever ousted from the House. The standard, apparently, flexes depending on party affiliation.
House Speaker Mike Johnson struck a notably different tone, acknowledging the gravity of the situation while respecting the process:
"This is a very serious matter. I think even many Democrats, even members of her own party, have publicly said that the evidence is so stark ... but we have to process this internally and see how this goes."
Johnson did not shy away from the implications. He described expulsion as "effectively the political death penalty" but left the door open:
"It seems that this member of Congress has egregiously violated the law and exploited taxpayers and all the rest, and that, that would be, it would be a harsh penalty necessary for that."
Guest confirmed a sanctions hearing will follow the recess but offered no specific date.
The last public ethics trial before this one was in 2010, when New York Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel appeared before the same panel.
Rangel was later censured over failing to report assets on financial disclosure forms, improperly obtaining four rent-controlled apartments in New York, and failing to disclose financial arrangements for a villa in the Dominican Republic. Before storming out of his hearing, Rangel told the committee:
"I truly believe I have not been treated fairly."
The echoes are hard to miss. The playbook hasn't changed in sixteen years: claim persecution, invoke rights, question the process, avoid the substance.
Cherfilus-McCormick stands accused of stealing $5 million in disaster relief funds, money allocated to help Americans in crisis, and funneling it into a congressional campaign.
Her own party's members on a bipartisan panel looked at the evidence and found her guilty on 25 counts. Her party's leader responded by promising to block consequences.
This is what institutional rot looks like. Not the crime itself, but the refusal to treat it as one.
