Steube pauses expulsion vote on fellow Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick

Rep. Greg Steube said he will not try to expel Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick this week as he had planned, instead waiting for a recommendation from the House Ethics Committee.

Mr. Steube, Florida Republican, said he was told he wouldn’t get the Democratic support for the two-thirds vote needed to expel a member from Congress before the committee finishes its review process of the fraud allegations against Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick, Florida Democrat, next month.

“This process has been needlessly slow, but it will not change the outcome,” Mr. Steube said Tuesday on social media. “If Democrats want to slow walk this to protect their own, Americans can judge that for themselves.”

He added, “Once the Ethics Committee formally recommends expulsion, we will take up the motion and remove her from Congress once and for all.”

Mr. Steube said it was “interesting” that GOP leadership wanted him to wait on the expulsion vote “because they didn’t do this with Santos.”

Former GOP Rep. George Santos of New York was booted from Congress three years ago after an ethics report determined there was “overwhelming evidence” he broke the law multiple times and exploited his office for profit.

The Ethics Committee report on Mr. Santos had not yet been released when the first two votes to expel him were brought to the floor in May and November of 2023. He survived both of those, but was ousted by the end of that year.

Mr. Steube had planned to call up the resolution to expel Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick as the House returned this week. The Ethics Committee report last week said it found “substantial reason to believe” she violated the law.

Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick was indicted in November for defrauding the government of $5 million in disaster assistance and using it to get elected to Congress.

Prosecutors said Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick, along with her brother and others, bid and won contracts to staff COVID vaccine registration drives for their company, Trinity Health Care Services. When it was overpaid by over $5 million, they refused to give the money back, and Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick used it for her campaign.

Court documents signed Sunday said Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick waived her appearance at the arraignment and that her attorney will enter a not guilty plea.

Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick has slammed the charges as “baseless” and a “sham.”

She said the Ethics Committee’s action “was taken without giving me a fair opportunity to rebut or defend myself due to the constraints of an ongoing legal process.”

She added in a statement, “I reject these allegations and remain confident the full facts will make clear I did nothing wrong. Until then, my focus remains where it belongs: delivering for my constituents and continuing the work they sent me to Washington to do.”

The report released by the House Ethics Committee’s investigative subcommittee said the probe “has revealed substantial evidence of conduct consistent with the allegations in the indictment, as well as more extensive misconduct … related to violations of federal laws and regulations, as well as ethical standards.”

The subcommittee said it met 12 times over the 118th and 119th Congresses to conduct its investigation. It sent 30 requests for information, issued 59 subpoenas, reviewed over 33,000 documents and conducted interviews with 28 witnesses.

Mr. Steube initially said in November that he wanted to censure Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick.

Democratic leadership pushed against the planned expulsion vote, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York saying she was “entitled to the presumption of innocence.”

“She’s going through the process right now. And any effort to expel her lacks any basis at this moment in law, fact, or the Constitution. And if in fact there’s a resolution that is brought to the floor to try to expel the congresswoman, it’s going to fail,” he said last week.

The ethics subcommittee plans to meet next month to determine whether the report has been “proved by clear and convincing evidence.”

• Lindsey McPherson contributed to this story.