(José Niño, Headline USA) Rep, Cory Mills, R-Fla., arrived on the House floor already under a protective order and an ethics inquiry, yet some of his colleagues now believe the chamber quietly moved to shield him.
In October a Florida judge granted a protective order against the Florida Republican after his former girlfriend, Lindsey Langston, accused him of threatening to release sexually explicit videos and to harm any man she dated, according to a report in the New York Times.
The order bars Mills from contacting her or coming near her home or workplace through January.
The allegations do not stop there. Critics say Mills benefited from federal contracts while in office, violated campaign finance rules and embellished his military record, accusations that they describe as “stolen valor.”
On Wednesday, the House Ethics Committee opened a formal investigation into those claims, as first reported by the Washington Post.
That same day Rep. Nancy Mace, S.C., filed her own censure resolution. She cited accusations of stolen valor, abuse of women and improper contracting, per ABC News.
On the floor she confronted Mills at close range and told him, “You’re a disgrace.” Mills responded with a procedural motion that sent her resolution to the Ethics Committee instead of an immediate vote. The House agreed by a tally of 310 to 103, effectively shelving the censure.
The question now roiling Republicans is whether Mills received protection the previous night, when the chamber considered a separate matter.
On Tuesday, the House narrowly rejected a censure resolution against Delegate Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands, which would have removed her from the Intelligence Committee. The measure failed 214 to 209, with three Republicans voting no and three voting present, according to the House clerk.
That resolution targeted Plaskett’s text messages with Jeffrey Epstein during a 2019 hearing where Michael Cohen testified against Donald Trump.
Newly released records show that Epstein urged her to focus on “RONA,” a reference to Rhona Graff, and Plaskett soon asked Cohen about Ms. Graff, as detailed by the New York Times.
Plaskett has said she sought information from a constituent and not advice, has cited her 30 years of legal experience and has argued that the later federal investigation of Epstein was not public at the time, according to Politico.
Before that vote Democrats warned that if Republicans censured Plaskett they would move at once to censure Mills, as reported by The Hill. When the Plaskett measure failed and Democrats stood down, several conservatives concluded that a quiet agreement had taken place.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., tried to press Speaker Mike Johnson on the floor. She asked why “leadership on both sides, both Democrat and Republican, are cutting back end deals to cover up public corruption in the House of Representatives,” according to CNN. The chair ruled her out of order. Representative Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., shouted at colleagues in her own party, while Representative Kat Cammack, R-Fla., wrote online that “a handful of Republicans took a dive on a vote to strip Stacey Plaskett of her position on House intel because of her ties to Epstein,” as related by the New York Post.
Mills has rejected any suggestion of a bargain. He has said his office “expected his censure to move forward on Tuesday night” and insisted “there was never a deal,” according to Florida Politics. Johnson has told reporters that he has not “heard or looked into any of the details” and has said that the Ethics Committee can review the matter “if it warrants that,” as The Hill reported.
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
