Escalation: House Ethics Panel Rules

After a seven-hour public hearing that ran past midnight, an eight-member House Ethics adjudicatory panel found Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick committed 25 violations of House rules. It ruled that counts 1 to 15 and 17 to 26 were proven by clear and convincing evidence. It did not sustain count 16, concerning alleged money laundering involving Petrogaz-Haiti, or count 27, alleging lack of candor.

The case centers on roughly $5 million in disaster-relief overpayments to her family’s health care company and whether some of that money was used to finance her campaign through relatives and affiliated businesses. The committee’s probe spanned two years and reviewed more than 33,000 documents and 28 interviews. The panel decided the case on the paper record without calling witnesses, in its first open adjudicatory hearing since 2010.

She did not testify, citing her Fifth Amendment rights. Her new attorney sought to delay or close the hearing over concerns about the jury pool in her pending federal trial, but members denied the request. The full Ethics Committee will meet after the April recess to recommend a punishment to the House, up to expulsion, which would require a two-thirds vote.

AI-synthesized from multiple reported sources