Rep. Alcee Hastings was impeached on bribery charges as a federal judge. A few years later, he successfully ran for Congress and remained in office for the next 27 years or so through assorted #MeToo allegations until his death.
He was replaced by Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who ran on a promise to clean up things after Hastings, and was backed by AOC and the Left.
Now, shockingly, she’s in trouble.
A federal grand jury charged U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., with stealing $5 million in Covid-19 disaster funds — a chunk of which was then illegally contributed to her 2021 congressional campaign, the Department of Justice said Wednesday.
Cherfilus-McCormick faces up to 53 years in prison if convicted on the charges, the DOJ said in a press release.
Or, more typically for the CBC, 53 years in Congress.
The siblings obtained the money in July 2021, after the family health-care company where they worked received a $5 million overpayment from FEMA, which funded the company’s Covid vaccination staffing contract, according to the DOJ.
Cherfilus-McCormick and another defendant, Nadege Leblanc, are also accused of orchestrating a “straw donor” scheme in which money from the FEMA contract was sent to friends and relatives, who then donated it back to her campaign for Congress.
Guess the party.
The good news is that the opening arguments for the defense are almost certain to involve “Yo Mamma.”
A visit U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick made to a local Democratic club last week devolved into nastiness when a Primary opponent she’s suing drew her into a heated argument captured on video.
Near the end of the 4-minute exchange, the 46-year-old lawmaker appeared to let loose a classic insult salvo at Elijah Manley, her 26-year-old challenger: “Your mama.”
The squabble, which occurred at the Broward Young Democrats’ Oct. 6 meeting with Cherfilus-McCormick as a special guest, centered somewhat on a $1 million defamation lawsuit she filed against Manely last month over what she called “blatant lies” he spread about her.
It lists as defamatory, among other things, Manley’s assertion in July that Cherfilus-McCormick “took $5.7 million from taxpayers” — a reference to an overpayment from the state to her former health care company that was settled this year — and an ongoing House Ethics Committee investigation into whether she broke campaign finance laws.
Reached by phone Thursday, Manley told Florida Politics Cherfilus-McCormick did indeed say, “Your mama,” to him multiple times on- and off-camera.
The good news is that Rep. Alcee Hastings is still available. Somewhere.
