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. 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.
