House Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-NC) booted former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) from her private office in the U.S. Capitol building, referred to as her “hideaway,” on Tuesday night soon after he replaced now-former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
Fox News confirmed Wednesday evening that McHenry was behind the directive.
Pelosi’s office was informed of the decision via an email reviewed by NBC News and Politico.
“The Speaker pro tempore is going to re-assign H-132 for speaker office use. Please vacate the space tomorrow, the room will be re-keyed,” it reads, per NBC News.
“With all of the important decisions that the new Republican Leadership must address, which we are all eagerly awaiting, one of the first actions taken by the new Speaker Pro Tempore was to order me to immediately vacate my office in the Capitol,” Pelosi responded in a public statement that Politico’s Nicholas Wu posted to X, formerly Twitter.
Full Pelosi statement: pic.twitter.com/BSigojhRaC
— Nicholas Wu (@nicholaswu12) October 3, 2023
Pelosi pointed to her decision to allow disgraced former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL), who publicly admitted to child molestation in 2016, to keep a bigger office than the one she was evicted from when she took over a speaker in 2007.
“As Speaker, I gave former Speaker Hastert a significantly larger suite of offices for as long as he wished. Office space doesn’t matter to me, but it seems to be important to them,” Pelosi, who is in California for late Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) funeral services, said, per a copy of the statement shared to X by Wu.
She noted she was not available to clear out her office personally due to being in California and called the move a “sharp departure from tradition.”
An image shared by Wu shows a staffer moving a television out of the office late Tuesday. House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries’ (D-NY) staff assisted in clearing out the office, per Fox News Digital.
Walked by this evening and the hideaway is being packed up -> pic.twitter.com/n0jWFhCHxP
— Nicholas Wu (@nicholaswu12) October 4, 2023
This does not leave Pelosi without an office, as she still has her standard Congressional office in the Longworth House office building.
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