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Disgraced Dem cut off from doing business with government after alleged ‘outright fraud’ uncovered
House Ethics Committee weighs action against Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick
The House Ethics Committee is set to weigh potential expulsion for Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., following a $5 million pandemic aid fraud indictment. Separately, calls grow for the expulsion of Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., over domestic violence and campaign finance allegations, highlighting a bipartisan ethics challenge within Congress.
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After resigning in the face of a House ethics probe, disgraced former Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick has been cut off from doing business with the federal government or receiving federal grants, aid or contracts.
This comes as Cherfilus-McCormick, a Florida Democrat, is charged with stealing $5 million in COVID-19 FEMA funds and making illegal campaign contributions. Cherfilus-McCormick resigned from Congress in late April after Republicans vowed to force a vote to expel her from the chamber. Though she resigned, Cherfilus-McCormick has denied any wrongdoing and is still running to regain her congressional seat this November.
Now, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, announced that Cherfilus-McCormick has been suspended, a federal designation that temporarily bars her from receiving contracts, grants or other federal funds. Her brother, Edwin Cherfilus, along with other associates and affiliated entities named in the federal indictment, has also been suspended by DHS.
«Former Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick abused Americans’ trust in the most egregious way possible,» DHS General Counsel James Percival said in a statement. «She manipulated the COVID-19 crisis to funnel over $5 million of FEMA relief funds to her and her family members.»
DEM CONGRESSWOMAN INDICTED FOR ‘PARTICULARLY SELFISH’ ALLEGED THEFT OF FEMA RELIEF FUNDS FOR CAMPAIGN USE
Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., speaks after being sworn in during a ceremony in the Broward County Commission chambers in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Jan. 27, 2025. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
«This is outright fraud,» Percival added, continuing, «That’s exactly what a federal grand jury and the U.S. House of Representatives found.»
Percival said he is «proud that my office is taking the first step to ensure she is held accountable and American taxpayers’ money is protected from further misuse.»
Cherfilus-McCormick was indicted by a Miami grand jury in November 2025 for allegedly stealing $5 million from FEMA. The decision to resign from office came just before the House Ethics Committee was scheduled to recommend she be punished for misusing disaster relief funding that she allegedly funneled through several companies into her campaign coffers.
The committee found that she had committed 18 campaign finance violations, five counts of false financial disclosures, three counts of misusing official funds and one count of lack of candor.
Cherfilus-McCormick maintained her innocence, asserting that «This was not a fair process.»
She said in a press release that the House Ethics Committee «refused my new attorney’s reasonable request for time to prepare my defense.» She wrote, «I simply cannot stand by and allow my due process rights to be trampled on, and my good name to be tarnished.»
FLORIDA DEM FILED FOR RE-ELECTION DAYS BEFORE RESIGNATION AS HOUSE ETHICS COMMITTEE RAMPED UP PRESSURE
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. did not call on Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick to step down before her resignation announcement. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images; Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
«Rather than play these political games, I choose to step away so that I can devote my time to fighting for my neighbors in Florida’s 20th district. I hereby resign from the 119th Congress, effective immediately,» she wrote.
DHS said that Cherfilus-McCormick’s suspension aligns with President Donald Trump’s executive order establishing the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud. The Trump Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, which is led by «fraud czar» Vice President JD Vance, has been directed by the president to combat fraud, waste and abuse in federal benefit programs, «restore integrity to taxpayer-funded safety-net programs» and ensure that benefits go only to eligible Americans.
Vance said last week that the task force has been «working around the clock to root out fraudsters who have taken advantage of Americans’ generosity for far too long.»
KLOBUCHAR VOWS FRAUD CRACKDOWN, AUDIT OF MN GOV’T AS GOP BLASTS WALZ TIES
U.S. Vice President JD Vance speaks during a Turning Point USA event at Akins Ford Arena at the Classic Center on April 14, 2026 in Athens, Georgia. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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He pointed out that since the task force was launched, it has exposed 447 California hospices suspected of more than $600 million in fraud, while the U.S. Small Business Administration has referred more than 560,000 fraudulent COVID-era loans totaling $22 billion to the Treasury for collection.
Fox News Digital reached out to Cherfilus-McCormick’s campaign for comment.
corruption, fema, homeland security, corruption crime, congress, democratic party, politics
INTERNACIONAL
«Esta guerra ocurre ante la mirada indiferente del mundo»: Sudán y la crisis humanitaria que la comunidad internacional ignora
Los beligerantes
Una guerra étnica y con violencia sexual como arma
Se están atacando mercados, se están atacando escuelas. Se están atacando directamente hospitales y personal sanitario. La ayuda humanitaria sigue siendo bastante insuficiente
Atacan los hospitales
Las víctimas de El Fasher
INTERNACIONAL
FIRST ON FOX: Powerful House Ways and Means chair throws hammer down on ‘foreign-aligned influence network’
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FIRST ON FOX: Congress’s powerful Ways and Means Committee is expanding its investigation into an alleged «foreign-aligned influence network» that happened to be at the heart of the anti-American, pro-communist protests unleashed on the country’s streets on May Day.
Just after 1 p.m. on Friday, a black minivan pulled up to the curb on Union Square East in Lower Manhattan, and David Chung, organizing director of a national nonprofit, the People’s Forum, started quickly unpacking megaphones and bright yellow pre-made protest signs, including the message, «TRUMP IS THE SYMPTOM. CAPITALISM IS THE DISEASE. SOCIALISM IS THE CURE!»
Below the denunciation of the U.S. free enterprise system was the name «PARTY FOR SOCIALISM AND LIBERATION,» a self-declared Marxist communist group that worked closely with the People’s Forum as part of a network of 600 groups with $2 billion in collective funding behind protests on May 1, known as May Day. The scene repeated itself in cities across the country, with foot soldiers from the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s Washington, D.C., chapter among the first to arrive for May Day protests, pulling identical bright yellow pre-made signs out of a black Subaru Outback parked on 21st Street NW.
600 GROUPS WITH $2B IN REVENUE MOBILIZE 3,000 MAY DAY PROTESTS IN A ‘RED-BLUE’ ALLIANCE, PROBE FINDS
Fox News Digital has now learned that House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith is escalating an investigation into an alleged malign influence of Neville Roy Singham, an American-born Marxist tech tycoon living in Shanghai, funding the People’s Forum and two other pro-communist, pro-China nonprofits headquartered in the U.S., BreakThrough BT Media Inc. and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, which regularly publish pro-China propaganda criticizing the U.S. as the «belly of the beast» and an «imperialist» power.
On Monday, Smith sent letters, obtained by Fox News Digital, to the three groups, raising «significant concerns» about «foreign influence or control» in the U.S. and the «financing arrangements and the structure of a foreign-aligned influence network, not protected speech or association.»
According to a Fox News Digital investigation published into the so-called «House of Singham,» the wealthy tech mogul has pumped a documented $278 million into a network of nonprofits, including the three groups, since 2017, pressing anti-American, pro-communist ideology in the U.S. and globally.
Smith repeatedly describes the three groups as part of an «interconnected network of organizations,» telling each nonprofit, «The Committee is considering whether legislative or regulatory reform is necessary to ensure that tax-exempt status is not used to facilitate or obscure foreign influence across an interconnected network of organizations.»
POWER COUPLE OF CHAOS: HOW A TYCOON AND ACTIVIST BUILT A ‘REVOLUTIONARY BASE’ AT THE HOUSE OF SINGHAM
Tycoon Neville Roy Singham argues the West’s role in World War II has been overstated in historical accounts. (Global South Academic Forum)
While the congressional investigation isn’t a direct response to the May Day protests, the deepening investigation reveals a wider concern among lawmakers and Trump administration officials in the Treasury, Justice and State departments. They tell Fox News Digital they are concerned that overseas interests are exploiting U.S. nonprofit laws to create an infrastructure and industry that asserts «foreign malign influence» in the U.S., operating through tax-exempt organizations, donor-advised funds, shell companies, fiscal sponsorships and media platforms.
In his letter to the People’s Forum, Smith alleged that Singham and his wife, CodePink co-founder Jodie Evans, had funneled money into groups «through shell companies and donor-advised funds that, by design, obscure the true source of contributions.»
REVOLUTIONARY TOURISM: INSIDE THE $600M MARRIAGE OF DARK MONEY AND FAR-LEFT AGITPROP
David Chung, organizing director at the People’s Forum Inc., sets up protest signs in Union Square in New York City on Saturday, March 7, 2026, ahead of an anti-war demonstration. (Rashid Umar Abbasi for Fox News Digital)
The Missouri Republican lawmaker has ordered each organization to turn over internal documents related to the investigation by May 18, including communications with Singham, records of foreign-linked donations exceeding $5,000, contracts tied to fiscal sponsorship arrangements, communications with foreign principals and lists of grant recipients located outside the U.S.
The letters to the People’s Forum, BreakThrough and Tricontinental reveal a congressional strategy in which lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Oversight Committee have been trying to use their jurisdiction over tax-exempt organizations to examine whether nonprofit law is equipped to deal with the infrastructure that influence-peddlers allegedly build to bankroll activism, amplify propaganda and influence elections.
At a hearing earlier this year into the role of malign foreign influence in the U.S., Smith rebuked the groups for «sowing discord» in the country.
Smith’s letters also show the common defense mounted by the groups, whose lawyers argue that the inquiry is political, exceeds the committee’s jurisdiction, improperly invokes the Foreign Agents Registration Act, called FARA, and threatens First Amendment rights. Smith rejected those arguments, writing that «none of those challenges withstands scrutiny.»
TOP GOP SENATOR CALLS OUT CODE PINK, THE PEOPLE’S FORUM ALLEGEDLY PUSHING CCP PROPAGANDA IN US
According to the letters, Washington, D.C., attorney Andrew Herman is representing BreakThrough and Tricontinental, along with Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, a far-left 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., that is also representing the People’s Forum. Herman and Verheyden-Hilliard didn’t respond to requests for comment.
According to digital records, the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund shares the same address at a Florida Avenue NW townhouse that is used by the ANSWER Coalition, a self-described communist group that also operates out of the People’s Forum headquarters on W. 37th Street in Midtown Manhattan.
When approached outside the People’s Forum in late January, People’s Forum Executive Director Manolo De Los Santos, ANSWER Coalition and Party for Socialism and Liberation co-founder Brian Becker and BreakThrough editor-in-chief Ben Becker refused to answer questions about Singham’s funding to their groups. De Los Santos is a researcher at Tricontinental.
MAY DAY DEMONSTRATIONS EXPECTED TO DRAW THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE AS LEFT-WINGERS PROTEST ‘BILLIONAIRES’
At the center of the congressional investigation is the influence of Singham. In 2017, Singham sold Thoughtworks, a company that he established, to a private equity firm, Apax Partners, for an estimated $785 million. He then used cash from the sale to build a network of nonprofits that promulgates anti-American Marxist ideology. A spokeswoman for Apax Partners told Fox News Digital that the firm wouldn’t reveal the identities of the investors that purchased Thoughtworks.
In his letters, Smith describes Singham as a former U.S. technology executive «now residing in Shanghai with documented [Chinese Communist Party] affiliations,» and he identifies the three Singham-funded organizations as three nodes in a complex «foreign-aligned influence network.» In a video unearthed by Fox News Digital, Singham expressed support at a conference co-sponsored by Tricontinental at the Golden Tulip Hotel in Shanghai, expressing support for the CCP, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Xi’s «new world order.»
In letters to BreakThrough News and Tricontinental, Smith said that he was investigating whether the groups are «acting as an agent of a foreign principal.»
FAR-LEFT NONPROFITS IN THE HOT SEAT AS LAWMAKER EXPOSES THEM FOR ‘SOWING CHAOS’ IN US
Activists prepare signs ahead of a May Day march in New York City on May 1, 2026. (Fox News Digital)
According to a Fox News Digital investigation, Singham has funneled $22.44 million to the People’s Forum between 2017 and 2022 through GS Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc., a donor-advised fund affiliated with Goldman Sachs. A spokesman for Goldman Sachs told Fox News Digital that the philanthropy terminated its relationship with Singham in early 2024.
Meanwhile, the Fox News Digital investigation found that Singham pumped $16.76 million into Tricontinental Ltd., through the Goldman Sachs philanthropy fund, and he funneled $1.098 million to BreakThrough BT Media Inc. from the Goldman Sachs fund, $2.1 million from the Justice and Education Fund, another Singham-funded nonprofit, and $60,600 from the Progress Unity Fund, another organization in the wider Singham network.
Chung, the People’s Forum organizing director, was listed as chair of the Justice and Education Fund in its 2024 tax filing, with De Los Santos, from the People’s Forum and Tricontinental, and Karina Garcia, a leader with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, also on its board.
Activists participate in a May Day march in New York City, Friday, May 1, 2026. (Fox News Digital)
Smith focused on the People’s Forum’s role as a so-called «fiscal sponsor,» collecting tax-deductible donations for like-minded projects, writing that the group provides «fiduciary oversight, financial management and administrative services» for affiliated entities, an arrangement he said «may allow foreign-influenced funds to flow to downstream organizations.»
The committee’s demands show its investigative blueprint to follow the money, map global relationships and determine whether malign interests are exploiting America’s tax-exempt system to obscure foreign influence across a network, not just within one organization.
Back on the streets, Chung, the organizing director for the People’s Forum, stage-managed the group’s protesters as they weaved across New York City’s streets, crossing over Union Square West, chanting, «One struggle, one fight!»
Soon after, BreakThrough posted the video clip, cropping Chung out of the shot.
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Fox News Digital’s Michael Dorgan, Louis Casiano and Jesse Watson contributed to this report.
Union Square, NYC pro-Gaza protest and Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (Getty)
politics, congress, investigations, socialism, globalism, us protests
Waltz says Trump stripped Iran of ‘leverage’ with Strait of Hormuz blockade
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz details the U.S. strategy regarding Iran, asserting President Donald Trump has removed Iran’s economic leverage through the Strait of Hormuz blockade. Waltz emphasizes Iran must cease supporting terror and abandon its nuclear ambitions for normalcy. He notes the strong U.S. military presence, compelling Iran to engage in direct peace negotiations.
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The United States is advancing a new United Nations Security Council resolution targeting Iran’s actions in the Strait of Hormuz as the administration seeks to reinforce its ongoing maritime operation with international backing.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said Monday the effort is designed to hold Iran accountable for mining international waters, threatening global shipping and attempting to disrupt one of the world’s most critical trade routes.
«The president and Secretary Rubio have instructed us to come to the Security Council in full cooperation and craft a resolution with Bahrain and the GCC countries,» Waltz said during a press briefing. «We’re working on a parallel effort at the Security Council that is separate and distinct from Project Freedom, but obviously related.»
«The resolution will involve holding Iran to account for its blatant violations of international law,» he added, including requiring Tehran to stop laying sea mines, disclose their locations and work with the United Nations to establish humanitarian corridors used by dozens of U.N. agencies to deliver aid globally.
RUSSIA, CHINA VETO UN RESOLUTION AIMED AT REOPENING STRAIT OF HORMUZ, HOURS BEFORE TRUMP DEADLINE
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz speaks during a United Nations Security Council meeting at U.N. headquarters in New York City on Feb. 28, 2026, following U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. (Heather Khalifa/Reuters)
The diplomatic push comes as U.S. forces moved Monday to secure commercial shipping through the strait under President Donald Trump’s Project Freedom. U.S. Central Command confirmed American forces sank six Iranian small boats threatening vessels, underscoring the fragility of the ceasefire and the ongoing risks to global energy flows.
Waltz framed the effort as part of a broader push to set a global precedent.
«We can’t set a standard that if two countries have a conflict … you can then embark on collective punishment for the economies of the rest of the world,» he said.
When asked by Fox News Digital about the broader implications of Iran’s actions, Waltz said the U.S. is working to ensure that international waterways cannot be weaponized.
IRAN SEIZES SHIPS IN HORMUZ AS US TALKS FALTER AFTER CEASEFIRE EXTENSION
The United States is advancing a new United Nations Security Council resolution targeting Iran’s actions in the Strait of Hormuz. (AP Photo)
«You can’t start indiscriminately just throwing sea mines out into the ocean to sow doubt and fear into the international maritime community,» he said. «And you certainly can’t see it as a revenue source … no country has a right to punish the rest of the world as part of a conflict.»
He also pointed to the human toll of the crisis, noting that thousands of civilian mariners have been caught in the escalating tensions.
«These are captains, engineers, cooks, deckhands … they had no part in this conflict. They shouldn’t be forced to suffer,» Waltz said, adding that the administration is emphasizing the humanitarian aspect of ensuring safe passage and aid delivery.
Fox News Digital also asked whether the U.S. and its partners should look beyond securing the strait and consider long-term structural solutions to bypass it altogether.
«I know our Gulf partners and allies are seriously thinking through that,» Waltz said, referencing existing infrastructure such as Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline and export routes through the Gulf of Oman.
«I know they’re looking at additional alternatives to frankly diversify their pathways and diversify their economies,» he added.
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A woman walks past a billboard showing a military hand holding the Strait of Hormuz with Farsi text which reads, «In Iran’s hands forever,» «Trump couldn’t do a damn thing,» «The control of Strait of Hormuz will be Iran’s forever,» in Vanak Square, in northern Tehran, Iran, on April 16, 2026. (Vahid Salemi/AP)
While the U.S. military effort is focused on immediate stabilization, including guiding vessels and deterring Iranian harassment, Waltz stressed that the U.N. resolution is intended to address the broader international implications and prevent similar crises in the future.
Despite the push, questions remain about whether Russia and China will support the measure after a previous attempt in April failed to pass.
Waltz said the current proposal is narrower in scope and focused specifically on clear violations of international law, which he argued should make opposition less likely.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Iranian mission to the U.N. fo comment.
war with iran, united nations, security council, us navy, middle east, iran
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