The former House speaker Nancy Pelosi lamented a “sharp departure from tradition”, after the Republican Patrick McHenry ejected her from her office while she was away for the funeral of a friend.
“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 said in a statement on Tuesday night.
“Sadly, because I am in California to mourn the loss of and pay tribute to my dear friend Dianne Feinstein, I am unable to retrieve my belongings at this time.”
Feinstein, the longest-serving female senator, died last week at 90. At 83 and with two stints as House speaker behind her, from 2007 to 2011 and 2019 to 2023, Pelosi has attained similar stature on Capitol Hill.
Speakers traditionally give their predecessors access to “hideaway” offices near the House floor after they step down.
On Tuesday, Pelosi’s Republican successor as speaker, Kevin McCarthy, was politically defenestrated by hard-right figures in his own party, the first speaker ever removed in such fashion.
McCarthy accorded Pelosi the usual office-based courtesy but amid Republican anger over Democrats’ refusal to support McCarthy against his rightwing rebellion, McHenry made the order to evict.
According to Politico, an email from a Republican aide to the House administration committee told Pelosi: “Please vacate the space tomorrow, the room will be re-keyed.”
The office, the site said, would be reassigned for “speaker office use”.
Steny Hoyer of Maryland, a former House majority leader under Pelosi, was also reportedly ordered to move.
Pelosi said: “This eviction is a sharp departure from tradition. As speaker, I gave former [Republican] speaker [Dennis] Hastert a significantly larger suite of offices for as long as he wished.”
Hastert was speaker from 1999 to 2007. In 2016, after a scandal over hush-money payments, he was sentenced to 15 months in prison, having admitted he sexually abused teenaged boys when he was a high-school wrestling coach.
At the Capitol on Tuesday, staff were seen removing items from Pelosi’s office. Axios reported that staffers for Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader, helped with the move.
McHenry did not immediately comment.
Pelosi said: “Office space doesn’t matter to me, but it seems to be important to them. Now that the new Republican leadership has settled this important matter, let’s hope they get to work on what’s truly important for the American people.”
