The removal of Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) from their unofficial offices close to the House floor was orchestrated by the outgoing House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), according to a CNN story.

Just a few hours after the House voted to remove McCarthy as speaker on Tuesday and elect Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) as speaker pro tempore, Pelosi and Hoyer received an email asking them to vacate their offices.

The office evictions were part of McCarthy's vengeance against the Democrats, who failed to back him when he was challenged by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), according to a GOP aide who spoke to the New York Post.

When the going got tough, "a lot of mainstream Republicans thought that Democrats would step up to support McCarthy (possibly a few voting present) and not to actively help Gaetz," the aide claimed.

McCarthy will seize any opportunity to criticize Pelosi and the Democratic leadership.

McCarthy intended to move into Pelosi's former office, which is customarily allocated for the outgoing speaker, according to Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.).
 

"Look, the situation is that Pelosi currently holds the position of the previous speaker. Kevin McCarthy has been chosen as the new speaker by Speaker Pelosi and other Democrats. He will therefore be receiving the post, he told reporters on Wednesday.

Pelosi, who held the position of speaker for two terms (from 2007 to 2011 and from 2019 to 2023), criticized the removal as a departure from custom. She declared in a statement that "this eviction is a sharp break from tradition."

"As Speaker, I extended a much larger suite of offices to former Speaker [Dennis] Hastert for as long as he desired."

Pelosi claimed she was unconcerned with the office space but suggested that the Republicans were, as she was absent from the vote that removed McCarthy because she was in California attending the funeral of Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

She remarked, "Office space doesn't matter to me, but it appears to matter to them.

Tuesday night, according to Politico, Pelosi's staff was assisted in packing up her office by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries' (D-NY) team.

Next week, the House is anticipated to choose a new speaker.