Democrat borrows Trump’s ‘witch hunt’ chorus to resign from Congress after House ethics probe | EUROtoday

A Democratic congressswoman accused of illegally utilizing federal funds to fund her election bid resigned from Congress on Tuesday and accused the House Ethics Committee of launching a “witch hunt” in opposition to her.

Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick resigned on Tuesday in a press release sustaining her innocence in an Ethics probe into allegations that she stole $5m in FEMA funding for Covid vaccinations, for which she’s on federal trial in Florida.

“I hereby resign from the 119th Congress, effective immediately,” Cherfilus-McCormick wrote in a press release posted to X/Twitter on Tuesday afternoon.

She added: “This was not a fair process…I will not stand by and pretend this was anything other than a witch hunt.”

The congresswoman went on to say that she would “devote [her] time to fighting for my neighbors in Florida’s 20th district”, however didn’t clarify what that meant. With her resignation, a single-digit House GOP majority ticks as much as 217-213, with 4 vacancies and one unbiased caucusing with Republicans.

Her resignation follows the ouster of two male members of Congress, one Democrat and one Republican, over their respective sexual misconduct claims. Former Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat, is accused by a former staffer of rape; he has denied the claims whereas dropping out of the House and the California governor’s race, the place he was a number one contender. Former Rep. Tony Gonzales (R)’s affair with a staffer who later dedicated suicide additionally led to his resignation.

Those resignations occurred in fast succession, as a wave of stress grew on Capitol Hill and members of each events more and more signaled that they might again a collection of expulsion resolutions.

Cherfilus-McCormick was accused of taking a $5m overpayment from FEMA for Covid vaccination distribution functions and funneling it by way of a collection of straw donors and accounts earlier than a number of the cash was used to fund her 2022 marketing campaign for the House of Representatives. She can be accused of spending different funds from the overpayment on jewellery and different private expenditures. She has maintained that the allegations are false since she was charged with federal offences over the allegations in November of 2025 by the Trump Justice Department.

“Using disaster relief funds for self-enrichment is a particularly selfish, cynical crime,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi mentioned in a press release on the time. “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.”

While the allegations made heads activate Capitol Hill, the president has centered his hearth on different Democrats and politicized targets with far much less credible allegations of economic (or different) misdeeds as he has directed his deputies to rework the Justice Department into one thing of his personal private prosecutor’s workplace. The company, previously led by Bondi, has launched unsuccessful makes an attempt to prosecute the likes of James Comey, Letitia James and different perceived enemies of the president, which has sparked a wave of resignations from profession prosecutors and investigators.