Rep. Anna Paulina Luna told Fox News Digital she is "very confident" the House has enough votes to expel Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, the indicted Florida Democrat who faces more than two dozen ethics violations and a federal criminal case that could put her behind bars for over 53 years. The expulsion vote could come as early as next week.
Luna, a Republican from Florida, said the support extends across the aisle. She reported that Democrats have privately told her they will vote to remove their own colleague, a striking claim, if it holds, in a chamber where party loyalty usually overrides institutional accountability.
Cherfilus-McCormick, for her part, is not going quietly. She told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that she would not resign, framing her refusal as a stand for her constituents. But the walls are closing in from every direction, from the ethics panel, from the federal courthouse, and now from members of her own party.
The case against Cherfilus-McCormick is not a matter of one or two borderline infractions. A bipartisan House Ethics Committee subcommittee found her guilty of 25 out of 27 charges in March. The allegations center on a scheme involving $5 million from a FEMA-funded COVID-19 contract that prosecutors say was diverted and laundered into her 2021 congressional campaign.
The Washington Free Beacon reported that the committee's ruling opens the way for a full hearing on sanctions, with expulsion from Congress likely to be considered. The ethics panel described her conduct as "extensive misconduct," a phrase that covers a range of alleged offenses: failing to properly disclose campaign and personal finances, accepting improper campaign donations, and directing federal funds to friends and associates in violation of House rules.
Separate from the ethics process, Cherfilus-McCormick faces a federal criminal indictment. If convicted, she could spend more than 53 years in prison. The criminal and ethics case against Cherfilus-McCormick has been building for months, and the convergence of the two tracks now makes her position in Congress all but untenable.
Yet Cherfilus-McCormick has maintained she will fight the charges. She said in a statement last month, as reported by the Washington Examiner:
"I look forward to proving my innocence. Until then, my focus remains where it belongs: showing up for the great people of Florida's 20th District who sent me to Washington to fight for them."
On Tuesday, she doubled down. Luna relayed to Fox News Digital that Cherfilus-McCormick said:
"This is not the time to abandon the district, not when they too are fighting for their future."
The district, of course, is not the one facing a potential half-century prison sentence. And the question of who abandoned whom, the congresswoman or the taxpayers whose disaster relief money allegedly ended up funding her campaign, is precisely what the ethics panel and federal prosecutors are trying to answer.
Rep. Greg Steube, another Florida Republican, is expected to introduce a privileged resolution to expel Cherfilus-McCormick after the House Ethics Committee issues its recommended sanction next week. Newsmax reported that Steube has signaled his intent clearly, tying the resolution directly to the ethics findings.
Steube laid out his reasoning plainly:
"Today's House Ethics findings detail more than two dozen counts of serious financial crimes. When we return to Washington, I'll call up a resolution to expel her from Congress."
Expulsion from the House has happened only a handful of times in American history. It requires a two-thirds majority, a high bar that typically makes removal almost impossible in a closely divided chamber. But the breadth of the charges against Cherfilus-McCormick, combined with the federal indictment, has shifted the math in ways that few recent cases have.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has added his weight to the effort. Just The News reported that Johnson said he expects the full House to reach a consensus that Cherfilus-McCormick should be removed. The Ethics Committee, he noted, found "clear and convincing" evidence of wrongdoing.
Johnson stated:
"I think the facts are indisputable at this point, and so I believe it'll be the consensus of this body that she should be expelled."
That kind of language from the Speaker is not casual. It signals to rank-and-file members that leadership views the vote as a matter of institutional credibility, not partisan maneuvering. As we previously reported, Johnson's public backing gave the expulsion push a level of institutional momentum that earlier efforts lacked.
Luna's most consequential claim is that Democrats themselves are prepared to vote for expulsion. She told Fox News Digital:
"Democrats have voiced their frustrations with her and have stated that they will vote to expel her as well."
Fox News Digital reported that a growing number of Democrats, from moderates to progressives, have backed Cherfilus-McCormick's ouster. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat from Washington state, said plainly: "Since she was found guilty, she should resign or be removed."
But House Democratic leadership has not yet weighed in on Cherfilus-McCormick's fate. That silence is telling. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told Newsmax that if a resolution comes to the floor, "it's going to fail." Whether that prediction holds depends on how many of his own members break with him, and the ethics findings have made that break easier to justify.
The ethics panel's findings gave Democrats political cover they did not have before. It is one thing to vote against a colleague on partisan grounds. It is another to vote to protect a member found guilty of 25 violations by a bipartisan panel while she faces a federal indictment alleging she stole disaster relief money.
Cherfilus-McCormick is not the only member Luna has targeted. She has positioned herself as a one-woman accountability office in a chamber that historically protects its own.
Luna played a direct role in the departure of former Rep. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat accused by five women, including a former staffer, of sexual misconduct and rape. Swalwell has denied any criminal wrongdoing. Luna said she had an expulsion motion ready and threatened on Tuesday to introduce it if Swalwell did not resign. His office contacted hers just before the deadline, she said, to announce his resignation was coming.
Luna described the sequence to Fox News Digital:
"I was ready to make that expulsion. I had it ready to go. And then his office contacted my office and let me know that his resignation would be coming in a few minutes before the deadline was for the expulsion [motion]."
She added: "His resignation, obviously, was something that had to be done. It was non-negotiable."
Luna also said she turned over unreported information about Swalwell's conduct to the FBI. She described what she had been hearing on Capitol Hill as "disturbing", behavior, she said, that was "known about for a while. But no one came forward to officially report it."
Former Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican, also resigned ahead of a looming removal vote. His departure on April 14, 2026, and Swalwell's resignation spared the House what would have been an unprecedented week of forced removals.
Luna framed her efforts not as personal crusades but as a response to institutional failure. She told Fox News Digital:
"I guess I took it on myself to act specifically in these cases because I got really frustrated. I'm up here to serve my constituents. There's a lot of people that are up here to do good on behalf of their districts, to actually make real change."
She continued:
"And when you are associated with and you accept people's behavior that is unethical and immoral and illegal, it's a poor reflection, not just on the institution, but it also taints the waters for everyone that serves with these people."
The House Ethics Committee is expected to issue its recommended sanction next week. Steube's privileged resolution would follow. Whether the two-thirds threshold can be reached depends on how many Democrats follow through on what Luna says they have privately promised, and whether Jeffries' prediction of failure reflects real whip counts or wishful thinking.
Cherfilus-McCormick, meanwhile, is running for re-election. She faces both a federal courtroom and a House floor vote that could end her political career before voters get the chance to weigh in. The political fallout from the FEMA fraud allegations has already touched other Democrats who accepted donations tied to her campaign.
The open questions remain significant. Which Democrats have privately committed to voting for expulsion? What specific sanction will the Ethics Committee recommend? And will Democratic leadership eventually take a position, or continue to let Jeffries' offhand dismissal serve as the party's final word?
Congress rarely polices itself. When it does, the bar is high and the resistance is fierce. But a member found guilty of 25 ethics violations, facing a federal indictment for allegedly stealing $5 million in disaster relief funds, and staring down more than half a century in prison is not a close call. If the House cannot expel Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, it is hard to imagine what conduct would ever be enough.
