House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Tuesday that the GOP’s new interim speaker, Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., ordered her to vacate her office in the nation’s Capitol building.

What You Need To Know

  • Interim House Speaker Patrick McHenry sent an email to Nancy Pelosi's office Tuesday asking her to vacate her Capitol building office Wednesday

  • McHenry sent the email shortly after taking over the gavel from ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy

  • Pelosi is currently in San Francisco to attend funderal services for the late Senator Dianne Feinstein

  • She said in a statement that she is "unable to retrieve my belongings at this time"

McHenry’s office sent an email to Pelosi’s office shortly after Kevin McCarthy’s historic ouster as GOP House Speaker Tuesday evening. “Going to reassign h-132 for speaker office use. Please vacate the space tomorrow,” the email said, according to CNN.

Pelosi is not currently in Washington, D.C., nor was she there on Tuesday when lawmakers voted to boot McCarthy from his leadership role. She is in San Francisco to attend Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s funeral.

Feinstein died last week at the age of 90, having been the longest-serving female senator in U.S. history. Feinstein is lying in state at San Francisco City Hall Wednesday. Funeral services are scheduled for Thursday.

“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. “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.”

Pelosi called McHenry’s office reassignment a “sharp departure from tradition.” When she was House Speaker, she said she had given former Speaker Dennis Hastert a larger suite of offices and said he could stay as long as he liked.

Per Pelosi's statement, the office of House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., helped her move out while she's in California.

Louisiana Rep. Garret Graves told Axios that as the "preceding speaker," McCarthy will be given that office and attempted to paint Democrats as responsible for the situation in the first place. (A Republican lawmaker introduced the measure to boot McCarthy from his role, and members of the GOP were the ones who put the vote over the top by siding with Democrats in the minority.)

"The office that Pelosi currently occupies is the office of the preceding speaker," Graves told the outlet. "Now that she and other Democrats have caused there to be an immediately preceding speaker, she has removed herself from that office."

"That was a decision that Democrats and Speaker Pelosi made in giving that office to McCarthy," he added.

Former House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., was also asked to move out of his Capitol office following McCarthy’s ouster, CNN reported.

“Office space doesn’t matter to me, but it seems to be important to them,” Pelosi said. “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.”