For two years, Cory Mills has been under investigation by Congress, accused of multiple serious violations of House ethics rules as well as state and federal law.<\/p>\n
For even longer, many voters in U.S. House District 7 \u2014 \u00a0which takes in all of Seminole County and the southern half of Volusia County \u2014 have known there was something off about their congressman. Tuesday, GOP voters in this increasingly red sector of Central Florida got tired of waiting for House leaders to act \u2014 and took out the trash themselves. In the Republican primary, they thumped Mills out of contention, choosing a new nominee \u2014 former TV journalist Ryan Elijah, who will take on former NASA executive Bale Dalton in the November general election. It wasn\u2019t even close: Elijah beat Mills by more than 8,000 votes and trounced two other Republicans in the primary.<\/p>\n
November\u2019s general election\u00a0\u00a0promises to be a good race. Dalton and Elijah are well-matched,\u00a0their reputations equally spotless. Both have picked up significant endorsements \u2014 particularly unusual in the case of\u00a0Elijah,\u00a0who ran against an incumbent but picked up\u00a0the backing of Seminole Sheriff Dennis Lemma and Volusia Sheriff Mike Chitwood in the primary.<\/p>\n
Voters can be proud that the law enforcement leaders acted when congressional leaders would not.<\/p>\n
But we ask Congress \u2014 and GOP voters across the country \u2014 to make it clear that the House\u2019s work is not yet done when it comes to Mills.<\/p>\n
Charges piled up<\/p>\n
District 7 voters deserved better from the start. For most of his service in the House, Mills\u2019 reputation has been clouded, starting with his campaign boasts of military heroism. In 2024, high-ranking military officers told the Orlando Sentinel that Mills\u2019 actual record doesn\u2019t fit his claims of valor. Later, reporting by the website NOTUS found serious issues with Mills\u2019 Bronze Star commendation \u2014 including the statement of one of the two men he was commended for rescuing from enemy fire, who said he doesn\u2019t think Mills was present.<\/p>\n
There have also been concerns about whether the arms company Mills founded is doing business with the federal government (or supplying arms to hostile foreign governments), challenges to the veracity of his financial disclosures and questions about his campaign finances.<\/p>\n
These reports would be troubling for any member of Congress. But Mills serves on committees that have influence over military spending and include access to classified security information. He\u2019s also a part of the Intelligence and Special Operations Subcommittee for Armed Services \u2014 a position that gives Mills access to classified national security briefings. Earlier this year, Mother Jones magazine quoted a security expert at the Atlantic Council who called Mills a classic example of a security threat: \u201cHe\u2019s got financial problems; he\u2019s got problems with dishonesty and ego,\u201d former CIA agent John Sipher told MoJo.<\/p>\n
Then came the story that caught national headlines: After an extensive public hearing in October, a North Florida judge issued a sternly worded restraining order in October telling Mills to stay away from one of the congressman\u2019s ex-girlfriends \u2014 Lindsey Langston, the 2024 winner of the Miss United States Pageant. Langston testified that Mills threatened to release intimate video that could cost Langston her title. Langston broke up with Mills after learning that police had been called to the Washington, D.C., apartment Mills shared with another young woman, who showed officers marks on her arms that she said Mills was responsible for (a story she later recanted).<\/p>\n
Mills has consistently denied all the charges against him. Those denials ring increasingly hollow. The question is: What happens now?<\/p>\n
Keep chasing truth<\/p>\n
This story should not end with the election results; unless he resigns, Mills is a member of Congress until January and thus, still subject to Ethics oversight.<\/p>\n
District 7 voters, along with the nation, deserve the truth. So far, they only have a report issued late last year by the Office of Congressional Conduct, which found probable cause to support many of the allegations against Mills. Earlier this year, House members sent the case to the full Ethics Committee, which is said to have issued subpoenas and called witnesses.<\/p>\n
Many of the people who endorsed Mills early started backing away as allegations emerged \u2014 including President Donald Trump, who did not include Mills in a list of previously endorsed House candidates he issued right before the election. By Wednesday, the spin job was complete: \u201cI told Congressman Cory Mills of Florida, a friend of mine, to get out of the Race, but he wouldn\u2019t listen. He thought he could win, so who can blame him?\u201d Trump posted on Truth Social.<\/p>\n
The issue is not who \u201cblames\u201d Mills. It\u2019s who holds him accountable. House leaders should finish the job they started: Hold hearings, present their best evidence and give Mills a chance to state his defense. If they find any laws were violated \u2014 especially ones that involve domestic violence or potential misuse of Mills\u2019 office for personal gain \u2014 those cases should immediately be handed off to federal or local prosecutors in the District of Columbia or Florida.<\/p>\n
Then members of Congress can prove they\u2019ve learned something by the Mills debacle, and all the other examples of shoddy ethical lapses we\u2019ve\u00a0been\u00a0bombarded with recently. U.S. Rep Kat Cammack, R-Gainesville, said \u00a0Tuesday she planned to introduce bipartisan legislation \u00a0that would make ethics investigations more politics-proof and straightforward.\u00a0\u201cAnything\u00a0that can\u2019t actually hold people accountable isn\u2019t reform, and I\u2019m not interested in reform that\u2019s just for show,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Cammack, who was one of the first House Republicans with the courage to speak out about Mills, should push hard for changes. District 7 voters had to write their own ending to Mills\u2019 story after they were cheated out of prompt, transparent action on the mountain of allegations\u00a0he faced. This should not happen again.<\/p>\n
The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Executive Editor Roger Simmons and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Use insight@orlandosentinel.com to contact us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For two years, Cory Mills has been under investigation by Congress, accused of multiple serious violations of House…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2853,482,139,141,140,109,76410],"class_list":["post-379007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-editorials","tag-opinion","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social","tag-social-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}