The House Ethics Committee is investigating Florida Democrat Sheila Cherfilus McCormick for possible campaign finance violations as well as House rules violations.
She moved to Florida from New York as a teenager, attended high school, and then obtained a degree in Political Science from Howard University. After that, she earned a law degree at St. Thomas University School of Law. In 2018, she ran for the Democratic nomination to unseat Alcee Hastings in Florida’s 20th Congressional District. Cherfilus McCormick was defeated by Hastings in both 2018 and 2020. After Hastings died in office, in 2021 she won the Democratic Primary and the General in a Special Election and was sworn in as President in January 2022.
The avowedly progressive politician is now the subject of an ethics investigation that was announced on Wednesday.
The committee stated in a press release that the subpanel would determine whether Cherfilus McCormick had “violated campaign finance laws and/or regulations in connection with [her] 2022 special election campaigns and/or her 2022 reelection campaigns, failed to disclose required information in statements required to be submitted to the House and/or accepted volunteer services for official work by an individual who was not employed in her office.”
An investigation was initiated in response to a referral made by the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) in September.
A spokesperson for Cherfilus McCormick responded to the announcement:
As the Ethics Committee stated in its statement, merely establishing an investigation subcommittee is not enough to indicate that a violation has occurred. The Congresswoman is taking these issues seriously and working to resolve them.
After a recount, Cherfilus McCormick narrowly won the 2022 special elections, winning by only 11,662 votes over her opponent Darrell Holness, Broward County commissioner.
Cherfilus McCormick is not the only one who has been scrutinized by the Ethics Committee in this year.
In March, we reported that the Office of Congressional Ethics (which includes members of both parties) unanimously determined that there were “substantial reasons to believe” that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez violated federal laws. This is about her accepting tickets to the Met Gala 2021, as well as other things including the “tax-the-rich” dress she wore at the event. The investigation is still ongoing, but the odds of Joe Biden’s DOJ filing charges are almost zero.
Ilhan Omar is next, who was having an affair with a vendor for her campaign that she also paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to. She married him and presumably gained access to the money that she had paid. You can’t blame this scam for its lack of creativity.
Cori Bush is the House’s most notorious race baiter. She has never encountered an issue that didn’t have some connection to intersectionalism. She once said, infamously, that anti-abortion legislation disproportionately hurts gay people. It is still unclear how this works.
Bush had been accused of using campaign funds for “security” services. As reported previously, the House Member paid her husband at least $60,000. He was not licensed to provide such services in Washington, D.C., or Missouri. Bush also spent more than $500,000 on “security” in 2022, which is a staggering amount when you compare it to Omar’s $65,000.
The latest news. Bush is now the subject of a formal ethics complaint that has nothing to do with the corruption mentioned above. The complaint is about the misuse of government funds.
George Santos, a Republican from New York, was ousted recently by his colleagues after an investigation into ethics (and criminal charges).
The Ethics Committee is busy as usual.
