Indicted Democratic Congresswoman Grilled by Colleagues on Both Sides of the Aisle During Rare Public Ethics Committee Hearing

A lawmaker indicted on more than a dozen charges related to allegedly embezzling $5 million in public funds, Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, was grilled by her Republican and Democratic colleagues during a rare public Ethics Committee hearing on Thursday night. The committee, which typically conducts its investigations in private, is looking into whether Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick broke House rules. The congresswoman is being accused by federal prosecutors of improperly taking covid-era FEMA funds for herself, her family, and her campaign via a healthcare company owned by her parents. The staff investigators on the Ethics Committee, as well as prosecutors who are gearing up to take Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick to trial, have alleged that she used millions of FEMA dollars not only to enrich herself, but to illegally inflate the amount of campaign contributions she received during a contested primary in 2021. If convicted, Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick faces up to 53 years in prison, according to the Department of Justice’s sentencing guidelines. The Ethics Committee has been investigating her actions since 2023. At the hearing on Thursday, Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick did not speak, and instead was defended by her personal attorney, William Barzee. The hearing was specifically conducted by what is known as an adjudicative subcommittee, which will determine whether or not Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick broke House rules, and if she is either worthy of censure or expulsion. At the outset of the meeting, Mr. Barzee asked that the committee delay its public hearing to question his client until after her criminal trial had ended, though committee members — in a private vote — declined to grant such a request. Mr. Barzee said consistently throughout the hearing Thursday that the hearing represented a threat to his client’s constitutional right against self-incrimination, given that he had to advise her to not answer questions in order to protect the integrity of the criminal trial. “I mean, listen — if the committee is going to take action, at the very least you have to give us a hearing, you have to allow me to call witnesses [in] her defense, you have to let me cross-examine witnesses that [committee] staff put up. You can’t just decide this on the paper and push it aside,” Mr. Barzee said at the outset of the hearing, seated beside Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. “I need to be able to see witnesses. She has a right to confront those witnesses.”The Republican chairman of the Ethics Committee, Congressman Michael Guest, said he took great “offense” to the notion that he and his colleagues were in any way trying to trample on Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick’s constitutional rights. He says that the committee is going through its typical process of holding lawmakers accountable. “For two years, the committee has worked to gather documents. For two years, we have tried to get documents from your client,” an impassioned Mr. Guest told Mr. Barzee. “For you to allege that … we’ve not tried to gather this information for the last two years, I find that offensive.”“For you to make that allegation that we, as an investigative subcommittee, are trampling on some sort of rights of your client, I take offense to that,” Mr. Guest said sternly. The top Democrat on the Ethics Committee, Congressman Mark DeSaulnier, did not run defense for Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick at the hearing, nor did any other Democratic member of the panel. During his questioning period, Mr. DeSaulnier asked about FEC rules and how it is important that the agency investigate the “intent” of candidates’ fundraising operations. Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick has been accused of taking millions of dollars originating from FEMA, donating those funds to her own campaign on the last day of a fundraising deadline for public disclosure, and then immediately refunding that same amount back to her own personal bank account once the filing period closes, allowing her to pocket the money while also appearing to be a wealthy individual who was funding her own campaign. “Are you aware of … mistakes … of this scale?” Mr. DeSaulnier asked the committee’s investigations director who testified on Thursday. “It seems sort of extraordinary,” he added. The committee staff alleged that, of the $14 million that was received by Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick’s parents’ company from the state of Florida, more than half of it went to the congresswoman, her siblings, and her friends and allies. Many of those dollars ended up going toward her 2022 Democratic primary campaign — a campaign she ended up winning by only five votes. Another Democrat, Congressman Glenn Ivey — a Harvard Law-educated former prosecutor — did not hold back in questioning his colleague’s lawyer. He pressed Mr. Barzee on how money going from her parents’ healthcare company to Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick’s brother and then into the congresswoman’s campaign account did not represent some kind of crime. “The fact that it’s a joint account, in your view, makes it permissible under the campaign finance laws?” Mr. Ivey asked, referencing a multi-million dollar contribution to Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick’s campaign from a bank account co-owned by both the congresswoman and her brother. “The money belongs to her,” Mr. Barzee responded sternly. “Is it a joint account or not?” Mr. Ivey asked. “I honestly don’t know what the bank called it,” Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick’s lawyer said. If the Ethics Committee does eventually find that Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick violated House rules, then it will mark the first time in more than a decade that the panel, after having held a public hearing, brings the matter to the floor of the House. Depending on the outcome of this hearing, lawmakers may be forced to vote in the coming weeks on either a censure resolution or an expulsion resolution, which would require a two-thirds majority in order to pass. One Florida Republican, Congressman Greg Steube, has already promised to bring up a measure to expel Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick from the House.“The Ethics Committee is the only committee in Congress that’s evenly split between Republicans and Democrats. So, if the committee — in a bipartisan manner — recommends an expulsion, that puts the Democratic Caucus in a very tough position,” Mr. Steube told reporters on Thursday. “Once that [committee recommendation] is made public … I will move the floor to expel.”

Indicted Democratic Congresswoman Grilled by Colleagues on Both Sides of the Aisle During Rare Public Ethics Committee Hearing

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