Guess who's running for re-election after resigning: un-freaking believable

What follows is stranger, and certainly funnier, than fiction.

Former Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL), who resigned from Congress before she was officially kicked out, is doing something so shameless, so typical of D.C., and I hate to admit it, something quite funny: she is running for re-election to her old seat. 

It creates another headache for Democrats, as Sheila was engulfed in a scandal where she reportedly stole millions in relief aid from FEMA. It was a lengthy investigation by the House Ethics Committee, and it became clear she was done when the most vocal left-wingers on the Hill were calling for her removal (via NOTUS):

Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, the embattled, now-former congresswoman who resigned from Congress this week ahead of potential expulsion, plans to defiantly run for reelection. Cherfilus-McCormick filed on April 17 to run again for her seat, and a campaign aide confirmed to NOTUS she is running — as a Democrat.

Cherfilus-McCormick stepped down from office Tuesday, a half hour before the House Ethics Committee was scheduled to recommend punishment on an array of charges. The panel had previously found her guilty of 25 ethics violations, including allegedly stealing $5 million dollars in federal disaster-aid funds used to bolster her 2021 campaign as well as campaign-finance violations.

The committee had been investigating Cherfilus-McCormick for two years, issuing 58 subpoenas, interviewing 28 witnesses and reviewing over 33,000 documents.

Cherfilus-McCormick also faces criminal charges regarding the federal relief funds she received during the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier this month, a judge granted her a trial-date extension to February 2027.

In the meantime, she is running for the south Florida seat. 

Her resignation left the 20th Congressional District seat vacant and it is unclear when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis plans to fill the vacancy. The Republican-led Legislature is also debating whether to redraw district maps in the state.

Look, only in the swamp does a politician get caught with her hand in the FEMA cookie jar for millions, get chased out by her own side, and immediately decide the voters deserve another shot at her. The Democrats must be thrilled to have this walking ethics indictment on the ballot again. Nothing says "we've learned our lesson" like running the same scandal-plagued candidate right back out there. South Florida is in for quite the show.

Who does she thinks she is anyway; a Somali businesswoman from Minnesota?

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Florida Democrat Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick resigns from Congress

Former Democrat Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick and her eyelashes 

Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL) resigned from Congress today, Tuesday, April 21, 2026. The resignation went down just minutes before a scheduled House Ethics Committee hearing set to consider formal disciplinary action, which could have included expulsion recommendations.

The committee had previously found "clear and convincing evidence" of 25 out of 27 violations related to ethics rules and campaign finance laws, including allegations that she misused millions in federal COVID-era FEMA disaster relief funds (improperly sent to her family's health care company) to support her 2022 congressional campaign.
Cherfilus-McCormick said in her arrogant statement that the process was a "witch hunt" and unfair "political games," saying she chose to step away rather than continue. Her resignation is effective immediately.

"Rather than play these political games, I choose to step away so I can devote my time to fighting for my neighbors in Florida's 20th District," she wrote on social media Tuesday afternoon. "I hereby resign from the 119th Congress, effective immediately."

"This fight is far from over," Cherfilus-McCormick, who was indicted by a grand jury last year for allegedly stealing COVID-19 emergency funds, added in her statement.

She is facing 53 years in prison as part of a separate criminal indictment. The chances that her actually serving that sentence is as remote as JD Pritzker running a marathon.

Her abrupt announcement came after Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) pledged to file a motion to expel her, teeing up a vote later this week. It takes two-thirds of the House to remove a lawmaker, but a growing number of Democrats have voiced support for the expulsion effort.

House Ethics Chairman Michael Guest (R-MS) announced the panel lost jurisdiction with Cherfilus-McCormick's eleventh-hour decision to quit Congress. The committee panel dropped a bombshell back in March, uncovering "clear and convincing evidence" that Florida Democrat Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick had misused federal disaster relief money, funneled improperly straight to her family’s healthcare company, along with a boatload of other misconduct that would make even the most jaded Capitol Hill veteran raise an eyebrow.

Cherfilus-McCormick, of course, has denied any wrongdoing from day one and repeatedly swatted away any chatter that she might actually resign if faced with the real possibility of an expulsion vote.

She took to social media to blast the entire ethics investigation as a "witch hunt" and whined about supposed violations of her due process rights, even though the committee had bent over backward to accommodate her, granting a delay earlier this year when she temporarily lost her legal representation.

But Rep. Michael Guest wasn’t having any of it on Tuesday. The Mississippi Republican pushed back hard on that narrative, pointing out that Cherfilus-McCormick had repeatedly turned down the committee’s invitations to hand over any exculpatory evidence that might clear her name."The committee has worked diligently to investigate this matter," Guest said. "This was not a rush to judgment, as some would claim … this was a very deliberate process to gather information into allegations that were extremely serious, and extremely complicated."

Guest also made sure to thank the committee staff who had spent more than two years grinding through this mess, poring over tens of thousands of documents to get to the bottom of Cherfilus-McCormick’s alleged shenanigans.

And just like that, she became the third lawmaker to resign from Congress in the past week alone. California Democrat Eric Swalwell and Texas Republican Tony Gonzales both stepped down last week to dodge their own expulsion threats tied to serious sexual misconduct allegations.

At least five women have now come forward accusing Swalwell of sexual assault and rape. Gonzales, for his part, admitted to sexual misconduct back in March with a former aide, who later tragically died by suicide.

Despite the storm clouds, Cherfilus-McCormick went ahead and filed for re-election anyway, though her fundraising tells a different story: she scraped together a measly $11,000 in the first quarter of the year, according to the latest FEC filings. Whether she plans to actually keep that campaign alive remains to be seen.

Notably, Cherfilus-McCormick herself wasn’t even on the House floor when her resignation announcement was read aloud.

A staffer for the congresswoman told reporters she was back in Washington with her family as the news dropped.

"She's with her family digesting this development and digesting this decision," the aide said. "As you can imagine, this wasn't what she wanted."

House Democratic leadership stayed conspicuously silent in the run-up to her resignation announcement, even after the Ethics Committee laid out the extensive misconduct in painstaking detail.

But it looks like Cherfilus-McCormick finally caved once a wave of her own Democratic colleagues made it crystal clear they’d vote to expel her if that rare removal vote ever hit the floor.

Former Speaker Nancy Hands-a-Flying Pelosi, never one to mince words, went on Fox News Tuesday and basically said enough is enough: "Let’s just get this over with."

Pelosi also called for the swift boot of embattled Rep. Cory Mills, the Florida Republican currently under Ethics Committee scrutiny for an alleged domestic violence incident and other issues.

"These cases just being out there . . .  they make us look terrible," Pelosi said.House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, meanwhile, didn’t publicly call on Cherfilus-McCormick to step down before she pulled the plug.

On the other side of the aisle, Speaker Mike Johnson argued that the Ethics Committee should be allowed to finish its work on Mills before any punishment gets considered.

"I'm confident that they are moving along as quickly as they are able," Johnson told Fox News. "And when members cooperate, which my understanding is Representative Mills is cooperating, unlike Cherfilus-McCormick, I would expect that the outcome would be much sooner."

"He's very upset about some of the allegations that have been made," Johnson added of Mills. "He says that he wants to prove his innocence, and he has the opportunity to do that."

By the way, this resignation didn’t fly under the radar, major outlets across the spectrum, Brain Flushings, PBS and CNN to CBS, Fox News, The Hill, Politico, Reuters, NBC, and The Washington Post, all jumped on the story today.

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Indicted Democrat Rep. closer to expulsion: House Ethics panel finds her 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-FL) guilty of nearly all alleged violations outlined by the committee earlier this year.

The guilty 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-MS), 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.

Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick was indicted by a Miami grand jury for allegedly stealing $5 million in FEMA funds on Nov. 18, 2025, according to the Department of Justice. I would say that she is toast, but it almost feels like politicians often get away with most things short of murder. And let's face it, even Hillary Clinton is walking free.

The panel’s slew of charges against the congresswoman, 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, a rare move that has been historically dominated by Democrats.

Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) 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, who rarely go against their own no matter what the evidence. [One has to wonder if this is done to protect themselves.]

House Democratic leadership so far has largely stood by Cherfilus-McCormick as is their wont, 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-CA) 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." We shall see if he is serious about his words.

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 humungous diamond ring that she 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, which I suspect is as unlikely as getting struck by lightning on a clear day at noon inside of Grand Central Station.

The House ethics panel’s investigation into Cherfilus-McCormick preceded the 2025 federal criminal indictment by more than two years. During that time, she had 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, which is something he gets paid to say.

"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. In what universe does that make sense?

When Barzee claimed that an undated chart was evidence of a "profit-sharing agreement" showing her legal title to the money, the bipartisan panel appeared visibly pissed off.

"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-TX), 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. Just don't hold your breath to see justice served in her case. I hope I'm wrong, and I would say exactly the same thing had it been a Republican miscreant.

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BOMBSHELL: Florida Dem Congresswoman Indicted for Allegedly Stealing $5 Million in FEMA Cash to Fund Her Campaign—While Real Hurricane Victims Suffered

Folks, you can’t make this stuff up. A sitting Democratic congresswoman from the Sunshine State is now staring down the barrel of more than half a century in federal prison after prosecutors say she and her crew looted millions in FEMA disaster-relief money… and funneled it straight into her own campaign war chest. 

On Wednesday, the Justice Department dropped the hammer on Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL), charging her with masterminding a jaw-dropping scheme to swipe a $5 million overpayment that FEMA accidentally sent to her family’s health-care company during the COVID vaccine push. Instead of sending it back, prosecutors say she and her brother Edwin Cherfilus treated it like their personal piggy bank—laundering the cash through multiple accounts and dumping it into her 2021 congressional race.

"Using disaster relief funds for self-enrichment is a particularly selfish, cynical crime," Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a blistering statement. "No one is above the law, least of all powerful people who rob taxpayers for personal gain. We will follow the facts in this case and deliver justice."

FBI Director Kash Patel didn’t hold back either: “This individual and her family allegedly stole money from FEMA and then laundered it through friends toward her own personal benefits – including her campaign accounts,” Patel said. “Today the FBI and partners at [the Justice Department] took action. No one is above the law.”

Prosecutors say Cherfilus-McCormick’s district chief of staff, Nadege Leblanc, helped funnel stolen cash to straw donors who then “donated” it right back to the campaign. And if that wasn’t enough, a tax preparer named David Spencer is accused of helping the congresswoman cook the books—claiming political spending and personal expenses as business deductions while inflating charitable contributions.

If convicted on all counts, Cherfilus-McCormick could get up to 53 years behind bars. Her brother faces 35, Leblanc up to 10, and Spencer up to 33.

Her legal team trotted out the usual line, calling her “a committed public servant” and vowing to “fight to clear her good name.” Sure.

Meanwhile, Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) is already preparing to drop the gavel. He plans to file a motion Thursday to censure Cherfilus-McCormick and boot her off every committee, Foreign Affairs and Veterans’ Affairs included.

“This is one of the most egregious abuses of public trust I have ever seen. Stealing $5 million in taxpayer disaster funds from FEMA of all places is beyond indefensible,” Steube told me. “Millions of Floridians have relied on FEMA after devastating hurricanes, and that money was supposed to help real disaster victims.”

Oh, and the House Ethics Committee is already investigating her separately.

Look, when actual hurricane victims are still waiting on FEMA trailers and tarps, and this crew is allegedly treating disaster money like campaign slush-fund bingo, the word “brazen” doesn’t even cover it.

Stay tuned, this one’s going to get ugly.

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