Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick resigned from Congress Tuesday, minutes before she was about to face an embarrassing decision by the House Ethics Committee on how to punish her for siphoning ill-gotten pandemic money into her congressional campaign.
The Florida Democrat had been facing possible expulsion.
In a statement, she decried the process but said she was giving up.
“Rather than play these political games, I choose to step away so that I can devote my time to fighting for my neighbors in Florida’s 20th District. I hereby resign from the 119th Congress, effective immediately,” she said.
The Ethics committee last month had found more than two dozen violations of House rules.
The core charge was that money from the congresswoman’s family firm, Trinity Health Care Services LLC, was used to fuel her campaign — including part of a $5 million overpayment of pandemic assistance funds the firm has refused to pay back to Florida.
Investigators also said money from the Haitian government went to a U.S.-based firm, Petrogaz-Haiti, that then sent money to operations controlled by the congresswoman’s associates, who spent it on campaign matters.
Investigators didn’t charge that Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick knew about the Haitian government connection, but did say the money from Petrogaz-Haiti was an illegal corporate contribution that was being hidden.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick complained that she was railroaded by the committee, calling it a “witch hunt.” She said she’d needed more time to prepare her defense.
But the committee, during last month’s hearing, said it had repeatedly asked her for her side of things and she’d rebuffed investigators at every turn.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick, who still faces criminal charges based on the use of the pandemic money, is the third House lawmaker to resign this month.
Reps. Eric Swalwell, California Democrat, and Tony Gonzales, Texas Republican, both gave up their seats last week while facing sexual misconduct allegations.
In news reports, several women have accused Mr. Swalwell of sexual assault.
And Mr. Gonzales has acknowledged an affair with a former staffer who then committed suicide by self-immolation last fall.
The Ethics committee has come under criticism for being slow to investigate those two cases.
But in the case of Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick, the committee had been probing her for more than two years.
“This was not a rush to judgment, as some would claim,” Chairman Michael Guest, Mississippi Republican, said Tuesday as he announced the proceedings closed. Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick’s resignation deprives the committee of jurisdiction.
Some Black Democrats and Florida religious leaders had signed onto letters urging the House not to expel the lawmaker, saying that decision belonged to her voters.
“To remove our duly elected representative during such a pivotal time would leave our communities voiceless when we can least afford it,” they wrote. “Our communities deserve stability. Our voices deserve to be heard. And our right to representation must be protected.”
The Republican National Committee, in a statement Tuesday, called the former congresswoman “an unashamed con artist who stole millions from Florida taxpayers and flaunted it.”
According to the federal charges, Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick’s family company won a contract to sign people up for COVID-19 vaccines. One check, however, moved the decimal point two places, boosting the payment from about $50,000 to $5 million.
The company rebuffed efforts to claw back the money and instead poured it into Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick’s political career, authorities said.
Nearly $200,000 was donated directly to her campaign, and Trinity money flowed to relatives and other firms owned by Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick, the probe found, making its way back to the campaign either directly through straw donors or paying for salary and expenses for campaign operations.
All told, investigators figured at least $3.6 million of the money Trinity bilked from taxpayers made its way into the campaign. She used some of the money to repay herself loans.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick first won her seat in a special election in early 2022, after the death of Rep. Alcee Hastings in 2021. The Trinity money was used in that campaign.
She then had to quickly turn around and prepare for the general election in November 2022, and that’s when the Petrogaz-Haiti money came into play, investigators said.
They said Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick has filed more than 60 bogus campaign finance reports that wrongly stated the status of her finances and loans she made to her campaign.
And the committee sustained a charge that Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick used her office to reward associates by giving them special treatment in pursuing earmarks, the line items lawmakers slip into bills to direct federal taxpayers’ money back to special interests in their states and districts.
Her lawyer, during last month’s hearing, said Trinity may have been overpaid, but that was an issue between the firm and the state and doesn’t implicate Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick’s campaign.
He said she was entitled to the Trinity money because of a handshake profit-sharing deal she made with the rest of her family.
He also said it was normal in the Haitian-American community for those sorts of deals to be struck without any paperwork to memorialize them. Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick is Haitian-American.
In her statement Tuesday on social media, the former congresswoman said her ouster set a dangerous precedent.
“In this country, we do not punish people before due process is complete,” she said. “We do not allow allegations alone to override the will of the people. That is a dangerous path, and one that should concern every American, regardless of party.”
In late 2023, Congress booted another of its members, Rep. George Santos, a New York Republican, who was also facing criminal charges over campaign finance violations and other fraud. He had not yet been convicted at the time of that vote, though he would plead guilty in 2024.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick was among the lawmakers who voted to expel him.
