President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order directing federal officials to ensure Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees receive back pay during the ongoing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown.

Trump described the situation as an “emergency,” citing severe strain on airport security operations. 

“Accordingly, I hereby direct the Secretary of Homeland Security, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, to use funds that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations to provide TSA employees with the compensation and benefits that would have accrued to them if not for the Democrat-led DHS shutdown, consistent with applicable law, including 31 U.S.C. 1301(a),” Trump said.

This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., once said that failing to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was “legislative malpractice” — a position he is now rejecting in the current funding standoff with Republicans.

“We are here today to do a single job, and that should be to fund fully the Department of Homeland Security,” Jeffries said during a 2015 speech on the House floor. 

Jeffries, near the start of his congressional career, urged the Republican-controlled House to pass a “clean” DHS bill that year when the department was on the brink of a partial government shutdown.

“Anything else is an abdication of our responsibility. Anything else is an act of legislative malpractice,” Jeffries said at the time, referring to providing full-year appropriations to the department.

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: GOP EYES DHS DEAL FUNDING ICE PROBES, BUT NOT REMOVALS, AS SHUTDOWN DRAGS

A decade later, Jeffries has reversed that position, arguing that fully funding DHS would be a failure of Congress. He and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have withheld their votes on a full-year DHS funding bill as they demand various reforms to rein in immigration enforcement.

“Taxpayer dollars should be used to make life more affordable for the American people, not brutalize or kill them,” Jeffries said in February. “The American people know ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is out of control.”

The 39-day funding standoff has snarled air travel across the country as passengers face hours-long wait times at airport security checkpoints due to a shortage of TSA workers. Tens of thousands of DHS employees — including TSA agents — are reporting to work without pay during the shutdown, leading some to call off work or quit altogether.

Some TSA personnel are sleeping in cars and selling blood plasma to make ends meet, Acting Deputy TSA Administrator Adam Stahl said Tuesday.

Jeffries is expected to vote against a full-year DHS measure with a majority of House Democrats this week. The minority leader has repeatedly voted against a “clean” DHS spending measure since the funding lapse began on Feb. 14.

EXCLUSIVE: HOUSE REPUBLICANS TO HOLD HEARING ON DHS SHUTDOWN RISKS AMID TRAVEL SURGE

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has narrowly steered the legislation through his chamber with largely Republican votes, but the spending measure has stalled in the Senate with nearly all Democrats moving to filibuster it. 

Jeffries, by contrast, is seeking to force a vote on a DHS appropriations bill that would fund the department minus its immigration enforcement functions. 

“We can fund TSA, fund the Coast Guard, fund FEMA, fund our cybersecurity professionals or continue to allow ICE to brutalize and, in some cases, kill American citizens or to violently target law-abiding immigrant families,” Jeffries said during a news conference last week.

It’s a position that he warned could put Americans in danger during the 2015 speech.

“We’re playing political games at a time when the safety and the security of the American people is being threatened,” Jeffries said regarding the prospect of not passing a full-year DHS bill.

A spokesperson for Jeffries did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

FIRST ON FOX: An unlikely bipartisan duo is teaming up to force defense contractors to prioritize military readiness over shareholder value.

Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., introduced legislation that would require major defense contractors to prioritize delivering weapons by fulfilling their contracts fueled by taxpayer dollars over rewarding shareholders, with stiffer guardrails and oversight on the companies.

Their bill, Prioritizing the Warfighter in Defense Contracting Act of 2026, would restrict stock buybacks, dividends and high executive pay unless companies meet Pentagon performance standards in their contracts.

TRUMP OVERHAULS US ARMS SALES TO FAVOR KEY ALLIES, PROTECT AMERICAN WEAPONS PRODUCTION

“America’s defense contractors should be focused on expanding production, not padding their bottom lines,” Hawley said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “But even as they make record profits, some firms have spent big on stock buybacks, dividend payouts and exorbitant executive salaries.”

The lawmakers argued that for several years, defense contractors have struggled to deliver weapons systems on time, on budget or in sufficient quantities for the military, and instead dumped the eye-popping sums of taxpayer money flowing to them into their own coffers, rather than invest in research and development that could speed up the process.

They pointed to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report published last year that found that defense acquisition programs were plagued by delays and cost overruns, with delays for major programs increasing “by 18 months” in just the last year, with combined cost estimates creeping over $49 billion during the same period.

TRUMP-BACKED AFFORDABLE HOUSING OVERHAUL CLEARS SENATE, WHILE HOUSE GOP RAISES RED FLAGS

Since 2021, the top four defense contractors — Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics and Boeing — have increased spending and spent $89 billion on stock buybacks and dividends. Two-thirds of that came from taxpayer dollars, according to Warren’s office.

“It makes no sense for the federal government to fork over billions in taxpayer dollars to giant military contractors while their executives buy back their own company’s stock instead of investing in our national defense,” Warren said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “This bipartisan bill will stop defense contractors from abusing the system at taxpayer expense and put our national security over Wall Street profits.”

The legislation also gives the Pentagon more oversight tools to identify underperforming defense contractors and require those contractors to submit a remediation plan.

GOP SENATOR PUSHES TRUMP’S 10% CREDIT CARD RATE CAP AS PARTY LEADERS PUSH BACK

It also grants the Department of War stronger enforcement powers for contractors that aren’t meeting the agency’s standards, including suspending contract payments, ending eligibility for progress payments or terminating contracts altogether.

Hawley and Warren’s bill would also require the Pentagon to provide public reports on the contractors subject to their law, which contractors were granted waivers from the change in requirements and which companies have violated the rules.

The legislation would also codify an executive order President Donald Trump signed earlier this year that required a similar crackdown on underperforming defense contractors.

“Earlier this year, President Trump led the way with an executive order barring underperforming defense companies from engaging in these practices,” Hawley said. “Now, it’s time for Congress to act by codifying the President’s executive order into law, ensuring that America’s warfighters are prioritized over corporate profit.”

Part 3 of a five-part Fox News Digital series investigating the House of Singham documents the “Propaganda Work” that Mao Zedong taught as critical to winning the People’s War. This reporting includes analysis using cutting-edge technology, including large-language modeling.

Early Tuesday, CodePink professional activist Olivia DiNucci raised her fist as she stood on the deck of a boat renamed “Granma 2.0,” in a tribute to the yacht Fidel Castro’s guerrillas used to launch the Cuban Revolution in 1956.

Standing behind a banner reading “LET CUBA LIVE” as the boat arrived at the port of Havana, DiNucci, who normally organizes protests in Washington, D.C., mugged for the cameras with her fellow revolutionaries, chanting and pumping their fists in the air, as camera crews rolled.

Luis De Jesús, who writes for a site called BreakThrough News, recorded the arrival, part of days of coverage promoting the cause of pro-communism activists, including the Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap, and packaging the week’s activities not just as activism, but as revolutionary political “resistance” against the U.S. “empire.”

By afternoon, BreakThrough News posted a video of De Jesús’ report on the boat’s arrival, with a beaming DiNucci on board. Other pro-communist media platforms turned the staged event into a media moment, from the Cuban News Agency to Brazil de Fato.

The scene offered a real-time glimpse of how a network built by an American-born, China-based tech tycoon, Neville Roy Singham, turns activism into propaganda and then propaganda into political and psychological weapons. In this case, the story of the Granma 2.0 framed Cuba as a victim of the imperialist U.S., and Cuba’s communist benefactor and trading partner – China – as a liberator, providing rice to a hungry citizenry.

As he fought the People’s War in the late 1930s in China, infamous communist leader Mao Zedong emphasized the importance of “Propaganda Work” and “the practice of changing reality.”

Decades later, Chinese Premier Xi Jinping announced a strategy of “telling China’s story well.”

POWER COUPLE OF CHAOS: HOW A TYCOON AND ACTIVIST BUILT A ‘REVOLUTIONARY BASE’ AT THE HOUSE OF SINGHAM

Last fall, pro-China academics, like Vijay Prashad, a trusted communist in Singham’s inner circle, spoke at a conference of the Global South Academic Forum about creating a “New World Information and Communication Order,” an idea popularized in the 1980s by Third World countries now called the “Global South.” 

The conference was co-sponsored by Singham, Prashad’s Tricontinental Ltd. think tank and the Shanghai-based East China Normal University, and administered by the Chinese Communist Party. The university features a School of Marxism and teaches “Marxist journalism.” Singham, Prashad and conference attendees closed the conference, standing at attention as “The Internationale,” a communist anthem played, attendees pumping their fists in the air in solidarity.

A Fox News Digital investigation found that the “new information” strategy operates through a network of organizations that produce, fund and amplify messaging across borders. 

Fox News Digital has identified at least 200 organizations in Singham’s network of about 2,000 organizations that directly work on propaganda that parrots the anti-American messaging of the Chinese Communist Party but is dramatically homegrown in digital shops from New York City to Los Angeles.

The investigation found that three Singham-linked U.S. nonprofits sent a total of $9.1 million in seven payments to a pro-China propaganda firm, Shanghai Maku Cultural Communications Co. Ltd. The payments haven’t been reported before.

Using large-language models, Fox News Digital analyzed 223 transactions that moved $591 million in total across five continents from 2017 through 2025, the latest year for which figures are available, in the Singham network and found the money flows through five concentric rings of an ideological pipeline that spreads pro-China propaganda.

Eleven U.S. nonprofit organizations form a core hub of the work that pumps pro-China, anti-America propaganda into the world, with a total of about $401 million flowing from Singham and his network into these organizations. The organizations didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Fox News Digital previously documented $278 million that flowed directly from Singham into organizations that “sow discord” in the U.S., as House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith put it recently at a hearing on foreign malign influence in the nonprofit industry. The rest went through layers of funding.

The 11 nonprofits and their total revenue from within the Singham network, including direct contributions from Singham himself, make most of these organizations well-funded: 

• BreakThrough BT Media: $3.5 million, with $1.1 million directly from Singham
• CodePink Women for Peace: $1.8 million, with $1.3 million from SIngham
• Inter-Religious Foundation for Community Organization Inc.: $420,000
• Justice and Education Fund Inc.: $74.2 million, with $68.7 million from Singham
• People’s Dispatch: $1.9 million
• People’s Forum Inc.: $28 million, with $22.4 million from Singham
• People’s Support Foundation: $181.8 million, with $167.5 from Singham
• People’s Welfare Association: $70 million
• Progress Unity Fund: $442,524, with additional revenues from other sources
• Tricontinental Ltd.: $16.8 million from Singham
• United Community Fund: $21.8 million

Mao’s strategy relied on embedding revolutionary actors within social, cultural, labor and educational organizations to shape public consciousness, normalize radical narratives and gradually erode the legitimacy of the state from within. 

Similarly, experts say, Singham’s network cultivates activist ecosystems, using nonprofits and advocacy groups as force multipliers and framing local political and social conflicts as part of a broader systemic struggle. 

That same dynamic is visible in real time, as protests, trips and political events are filmed, packaged and circulated as part of a broader narrative. DiNucci is a key figure, for example, regularly getting filmed and then broadcast on Singham network social media channels, interrupting the dinners, hearings and events of Trump administration officials.

In this model, disruption and polarization aren’t incidental but strategic, designed to weaken societal cohesion and authority over time, precisely the conditions Mao argued are necessary for victory against a stronger adversary.

“There is a war waging for the brains of Americans. It’s critical that America shore up its defenses before the nation is hijacked by confusion, manipulation and malign narratives,” psychologist Orli Peter told Fox News Digital.

RED WEALTH, DARK MONEY: HOW AN AMERICAN TYCOON DEPLOYS MAO’S PLAYBOOK AGAINST THE WEST

‘Information Laundering Operation’

A Fox News Digital investigation, scouring scores of financial filings, writings and social media posts, shows not only money moving from Singham-funded entities into U.S. nonprofits, but these nonprofits in turn funding media production, political education and organizing campaigns that promote the narrative of the Chinese Communist Party. The U.S. nonprofits pushing the anti-America agenda benefit from tax-exempt status and tax-deductible donations.

What begins as content — videos, livestreams and commentary — often feeds directly into organizing and protest activity, creating a feedback loop between messaging and action.

“Neville Roy Singham and Jodie Evans are running an information laundering operation,” said Adam Sohn, co-founder of the Network Contagion Research Institute, a multidisciplinary lab in Princeton, N.J. “It’s a narrative laundering operation that is selling China’s story to the world and sowing discord in America.”

“Neville Roy Singham and Jodie Evans are running an information laundering operation. It’s a narrative laundering operation that is selling China’s story to the world and sowing discord in America.” – Adam Sohn, co-founder of the Network Contagion Research Institute, a multidisciplinary lab in Princeton, N.J.

A wedding in Jamaica in February 2017 between Singham and Jodie Evans, co-founder of CodePink Women for Peace, brought together ideologues who would later appear on the boards, funding streams and public messaging of this network. Tax filings document the transfers. The emergence of a network of “Liberation Centers” document the physical infrastructure.

That network has matured into a transnational protest and media machine. Nearly a decade later, its infrastructure is visible on American streets, coordinated, funded and amplified by groups built quietly, deliberately and in plain sight. Singham and Evans didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Last week, BreakThrough News broadcast DiNucci outside the White House protesting to support the regime that the U.S. and Israel are targeting with missile strikes in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

FAR-LEFT ACTIVIST GROUP FACES BACKLASH OVER ‘TONE-DEAF’ PROTESTS AT CUBA LUXURY HOTEL

Shanghai Maku Cultural Communications Co.

Part of that system operates overseas, where funding supports media production aligned with Chinese Communist Party narratives. Significantly, there are a series of two line items that reveal just how closely this supposed charitable network works with organizations tied to the Chinese Communist Party.

Buried inside the tax filings are the receipts on how three U.S. nonprofits from the Singham network sent seven payments totaling $9.1 million in money back to Shanghai to pay a pro-China propaganda firm, Shanghai Maku Cultural Communications Co. Ltd., housed in the same luxury building as Singham’s operation. It’s not far from the university where Singham’s sister holds an academic position.

Guo Xiao, a former executive at Thoughtworks, the tech company founded by Singham and sold in 2017 for nearly $800 million, sits on the board of Shanghai Maku Cultural Communications, according to company records. Xiao didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Shanghai Maku Cultural Communications Co. identifies itself as producing content aligned with Chinese Communist Party narratives. 

Beginning in 2021, according to Fox News Digital analysis, three organizations from Singham’s network sent over $9 million directly to Shanghai Maku Cultural Communications Co. in seven payments for “production of online news program,” according to its tax filing.

BreakThrough BT Media Inc. 

One of the key organizations inside the broader transnational media apparatus in the Singham network is BreakThrough News, whose reporter met the Granma 2.0 at the port in Havana.

In a letter he sent to BreakThrough News last month, Smith said the House Ways and Means Committee is concerned that BreakThrough News is “part of a larger multipronged effort from the CCP to sow discord in our country” and that it has been “funded and influenced by Mr. Singham’s CCP affiliations.”

In early December 2019, BreakThroughNews.org was registered online. Early the next year, in early March 2020, “Breakthrough / BT Media Inc.” was registered in Delaware as a new company. It got IRS 501(c)(3) nonprofit status in June 2020 as Breakthrough BT Media Inc. 

Singham gave a total of $1.1 million to BreakThrough BT Media Inc. over two years with the purpose of the tax-deductible donations written simply as “public service” and “medical / public services” in IRS Form 990 filings.

In its first IRS filing, documenting its 2020 work, Breakthrough BT Media Inc. listed familiar names among its three-person board of directors. Ben Becker, the son of another trusted Singham adviser, Brian Becker, was the chairman of the board. Today, Becker is on the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s “Central Committee.” Becker was also in Cuba this week to support the communist regime.

Another director was Claudia De La Cruz, a leader at the Party for Socialism and Liberation with Becker and a wedding guest.

Finally, a socialist leader named Karla Reyes was on the board. She is the daughter of immigrants from El Salvador and rose in the ranks from joining Occupy Wall Street protests to landing a spot on the Central Committee of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. She is today an active member of “ICE Out of New York,” started by the People’s Forum, its protests filmed regularly by BreakThrough News.

In his letter to Reyes, Smith demanded records related to the organization’s ties to Singham and the Chinese Communist Party. He requested that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent remove the nonprofit status of organizations in the Singham network. 

While BreakThrough News doesn’t usually name the Chinese Communist Party directly, it regularly lauds Xi’s regime. In 2021, BreakThrough News’ host Rania Khalek promoted the “Chinese government” and its “eradication of extreme poverty within its border.” She co-hosted the session with Tings Chak, a researcher at Tricontinental, the arm of the House of Singham that pumps out pro-China academic work.

The Singham network functions like a coordinated unit. In 2022, People’s Forum gave BreakThrough a “non-cash” lease worth $318,596 for studio space at its W. 37th Street address. 

BreakThrough’s mission statement claims to be “unbiased towards any political candidates,” but the far-left outlet even created videos during the 2024 presidential election highly critical of Democratic candidate Kamala Harris as wanting to “out-Trump Trump.”

What began as a small, ideologically driven news platform became a broad multimedia machine producing documentaries, podcasts and social media content that amplified protest movements, international solidarity campaigns, especially around Palestinian issues and “anti-imperialist,” anti-America narratives. 

It’s a member of the International People’s Media Network, another part of the global House of Singham and a coalition of media platforms often publishing anti-America, pro-China content and sharing personnel with Tricontinental.

In 2023, BreakThrough News sent representatives to a conference hosted by the School of Communications at the East China Normal University, the public institution funded by the Chinese Communist Party’s Ministry of Education. Singham’s sister, Shanti Singham, and his friend, Prashad, work closely with those institutions. 

Following the arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, groups in Singham’s network organized protests within hours. BreakThrough News posted videos from the demonstrations. It did the same with protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

NewsClick

Fox News Digital has also tracked $10.5 million the Justice and Education Fund sent to New Delhi-based PPK NewsClick Studio Pvt. Ltd. in five payments from 2019 through 2023 when the government of India shut the operation down for allegedly using donations improperly to run an anti-India, pro-China propaganda media outlet.

The government of India has sent Singham a criminal summons for alleged election interference, money laundering and terrorism, alleging he engaged in schemes to sow discord in India. The NewsClick case is still awaiting a trial date.

National security experts say it is critical to understand the big picture to fully value the command control of this global propaganda war with a tech tycoon as the motherlode.

Back in Havana, as DiNucci stepped onto the dock and cameras rolled, the moment reflected more than a single act of activism.

It showed how the Singham network’s messaging system works in real time, capturing events, shaping narratives and distributing them to audiences far beyond the street or, in this case, the dock.

In Mao’s terms, it is “Propaganda Work,” not just reporting on the news, but helping define it.

From the dock in Havana, DiNucci played her role, shouting, “Viva la Cuba.”

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Caruto, Nikolas Lanum and Kyle Schmidbauer contributed to this report.

A former accountant and lawyer for the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein both told the House Oversight Committee earlier this month that the Department of Justice had never interviewed them about Epstein’s crimes.

“I’ve never been questioned by any government authority,” Epstein’s ex-accountant Richard Kahn said.

He noted that he had received a grand jury subpoena from the Southern District of New York and from the U.S. Virgin Island’s Department of Justice for documents about Epstein’s property.

“Both of the requests were for the same thing. They were asking for Epstein’s estate documents. They wanted to see his will and his 1953 trust,” Kahn said.

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Similarly, Darren Indyke said he had never been asked about Epstein’s dealings.

“Personally, no,” Indyke told the Oversight Committee. “I don’t believe I have.”

When asked if that surprised him, Indyke told investigators he believed it was consistent with the scope of his employment.

“Given my role as a transactional attorney for Mr. Epstein, no,” Indyke said.

Epstein, a former financier with a formidable social circle, died in 2019 while imprisoned on charges of sex trafficking minors. His death, which was ruled a suicide, left behind questions about whether Epstein had facilitated illegal sexual encounters for some of his contacts and prompted public demands for accountability for possible accomplices.

Like many public figures, Kahn and Indyke both appear in the Epstein Files — troves of documents released by the DOJ in compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE CALLS BILL GATES, LEON BLACK TO TESTIFY OVER JEFFREY EPSTEIN TIES

Their communications in the files do not, on their own, implicate any wrongdoing, and neither does their appearance before the House Oversight Committee.

Their depositions come among a series of other interviews from lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Interviewers have called figures like former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, billionaire businessman Les Wexner and Epstein’s accomplice and romantic partner Ghislaine Maxwell to deliver testimony.

So far, none of the subjects interviewed by the Oversight Committee has faced charges for their proximity to Epstein, except for Maxwell. She was convicted in 2022 on charges of exploiting underage girls.

Indyke, the attorney, said he was aware of Epstein’s original 2008 plea deal in Florida, where he admitted to soliciting a minor for prostitution.

“He was adamant that he had no idea that anyone involved was underage and personally assured me that he would never again let himself be in that position. I believed him, and I made the mistake of believing that Mr. Epstein would not again commit a crime,” Indyke said.

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Kahn, Epstein’s accountant, gave a similar statement.

“Epstein told me his 2006 arrest was a mistake, that he did not know the woman was underage, and that nothing like that would happen again,” Kahn said.

“I believed him at the time and never saw what appeared to be a minor in his presence. Had I learned of his horrific behavior, I would have quit work immediately,” Kahn added.

Fox News Digital reached out to Kahn and Indyke for comment.

An embattled lawmaker facing five decades in prison will face the congressional spotlight Thursday during an ethics trial that could result in her expulsion from the House of Representatives.

Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., is expected to testify before the House Ethics Committee during a rare public hearing Thursday afternoon. The case is separate from a sprawling federal indictment accusing Cherfilus-McCormick of stealing more than $5 million in disaster relief funds to finance her inaugural congressional run in 2021 and purchase luxury items, including a large diamond ring. The Florida Democrat is also alleged to have participated in a straw donor scheme and conspired to file a false federal tax return.

Cherfilus-McCormick has repeatedly sought to delay the hearing, citing the ongoing federal criminal case and losing her legal representation earlier in March. It is not clear whether the Florida Democrat will be represented by an attorney at the hearing. 

Cherfilus McCormick said in a statement sent to Fox News that she is “deeply disappointed” the bipartisan committee chose to proceed with a trial, alleging a violation of her due process rights.

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“I urge the Committee to follow its own precedents and uphold fairness and not allow this process to be driven by politics or numbers,” Cherfilus-McCormick said. “I welcome the opportunity to set the record straight and challenge these inaccuracies, when I am legally able to do so.”

Cherfilus-McCormick has denied wrongdoing after being indicted in November 2025 and pleaded not guilty in federal court. She has repeatedly defied calls from Republicans to resign — a move that would have avoided the ethics hearing and possible expulsion.

According to the indictment, Trinity Health Care Services, a company owned by Cherfilus-McCormick and her brother, Edwin Cherfilus, received $5 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) overpayment from the state of Florida for a COVID-19 vaccine contract.

Rather than return the money, federal prosecutors allege the duo laundered the money through multiple bank accounts to hide its origin.

The House Ethics Committee unveiled a 27-count “statement of alleged violations” against Cherfilus-McCormick that is expected to be presented during the hearing Thursday. 

The hearing itself is extremely rare. It will be the first time the eight-member panel will hold a public hearing against a lawmaker since 2010.

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Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., has said he would move forward with a resolution seeking to expel Cherfilus-McCormick regardless of the trial’s outcome. Under House rules, two-thirds of lawmakers — meaning a swath of Democrats — would need to vote in the affirmative to expel the Florida Democrat. 

“You’re in a situation where you have a sitting member of Congress who’s allegedly stolen over $5 million in taxpayer funds,” Steube told reporters Tuesday. “She should immediately resign instead of going through this process. But she’s going to force us to do this.”

Steube also said a possible recommendation of expulsion from the committee could force Democrats to support his resolution.

“If the committee in a bipartisan manner, it recommends an expulsion that puts the Democratic caucus in a very tough position because you would be undermining your own members on the Ethics Committee.”

But House Democratic leadership, who have largely defended Cherfilus-McCormick, has yet to say whether they would support an expulsion resolution following the hearing’s conclusion. 

Cherfilus-McCormick was among a group of Democrats who stood behind House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., when he gave remarks on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown outside the U.S. Capitol last week. He responded, “next question,” when asked by Fox News about the expulsion threat on Tuesday.

“I’m not going to prejudge the outcome that they arrive to,” House Democratic Conference Chairman Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., said Wednesday. “I respect the members of the ethics committee and the work that they have to do.”

Democrats’ refusal so far to condemn Cherfilus-McCormick has prompted sharp criticism from Republicans. 

“So-called ‘Leader’ Hakeem Jeffries talks a big game on corruption, but when it’s one of his own, he suddenly loses his voice,” NRCC spokesman Mike Marinella said in a statement. 

Some Republicans have also complained about a double standard with the chamber’s treatment of Cherfilus-McCormick by making comparisons to former Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y. The scandal-plagued lawmaker was expelled from Congress in 2023 before an ethics hearing or criminal conviction.

“It seems like what happened to George was just like a runaway freight train up here,” Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., said Wednesday. “They didn’t even give George an opportunity to get fully through ethics. And so this one’s been a little bit more deliberate.”

“I think going forward, how this one’s been conducted is how it should go,” Donalds added, referring to the anticipated Cherfilus-McCormick hearing. “It should be deliberate before these kind of judgments just end up on the House floor.”