In one of its first actions of the new Congress, the House Ethics Committee announced Thursday it would conduct a further review of allegations against Rep. Cory Mills.
It comes after an August 2024 referral from the Office of Congressional Conduct, which found the Florida Republican may have omitted or misrepresented information in financial disclosure reports and kept contracts with the federal government.
Members of Congress can’t personally benefit from holding government contracts, according to federal law. The referral recommends further scrutiny of companies owned by Mills that manufacture munitions that went to federal law enforcement.
“There is substantial reason to believe that Rep. Mills may have entered into, held, or enjoyed contracts with federal agencies while he was a Member of Congress,” reads the OCC report released Thursday by the Ethics Committee.
Mills declined to cooperate with investigators from the OCC — an independent, nonpartisan body that reviews and refers allegations of misconduct against House members — according to the report.
“This concerted effort to limit [the office’s] access to relevant information, often from witnesses also represented by Rep. Mills’s attorney, undermined these investigative efforts,” the report states.
Now the matter is in the hands of the Ethics Committee, which is off to a slow start this Congress after officially organizing this week. The panel will again be led by Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., while California Rep. Mark DeSaulnier is now the top Democrat.
The typically secretive panel was embroiled in intrigue at the end of last year over the decision to release its investigation into former Rep. Matt Gaetz.
Gaetz, a Florida Republican, resigned from Congress in November and was briefly President Donald Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney general before Gaetz withdrew his name. After a series of leaks and Democratic attempts to legislatively wrest the Gaetz report from the committee’s grip, the Ethics panel ultimately relented. The report released to the public described “substantial evidence” that Gaetz solicited prostitutes, used illicit drugs and may have violated Florida’s statutory rape laws.
New to the panel this year are Reps. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, Nathaniel Moran, R-Texas, Sylvia R. Garcia, D-Texas, and Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va. Returning members include Reps. John Rutherford, R-Fla., Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., Glenn F. Ivey, D-Md., and Deborah K. Ross, D-N.C.
The Mills move is the first made by the committee this Congress, although the announcement only means it is considering the matter, not that it has found any wrongdoing.
In an initial response to the Ethics Committee, a lawyer for Mills noted that the Federal Election Commission had dismissed a series of campaign finance allegations against Mills in September of last year.
“There is overlap between such false allegations and what appears to have been the subject of OCE’s investigation,” attorney Charlie Spies wrote, referring to the OCC’s previous name, the Office of Congressional Ethics. “The FEC found insufficient substantiation to support the allegations and officially concluded its inquiry.”
Mills made headlines recently for an unrelated incident. In February he was involved in an alleged assault in a D.C. residence but not arrested, and the Metropolitan Police Department later said it was reviewing its own response.
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