Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) praised Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) as a “faithful colleague” Wednesday but suggested the Ethics Committee will investigate him after a Florida judge issued a restraining order against Mills over allegations that he threatened a former girlfriend.
“I have not heard or looked into any of the details of that. I’ve been a little busy,” Johnson told reporters in the Capitol, where he’s been throughout the government shutdown. “We have a House Ethics Committee. If it warrants that, I’m sure they’ll look into that.”
Pressed on the issue, Johnson deferred to Mills.
“You have to ask Rep. Mills about that. He’s been a faithful colleague here. I know his work on the Hill. I don’t know all the details of all the individual allegations, and what he’s doing — things outside life,” Johnson said.
“Let’s just talk about the things that are really serious.”
On Tuesday, a county judge in Florida had issued a restraining order against Mills sought by former girlfriend Lindsey Langston, a Florida Republican state committeewoman and last year’s Miss United States. Langston had petitioned for the emergency order in August after accusing Mills of threatening to release explicit videos of her and commit violence against future boyfriends.
Mills, who is married, was also dating another woman in Washington. News reports about a physical altercation between Mills and the second girlfriend prompted Langston to break off her relationship with him. That, she said, prompted Mills to issue a series of menacing messages threatening to release explicit photos and videos of her.
“May want to tell every guy you date that if we run into each other at any point. Strap up cowboy,” Mills wrote to Langston on May 15.
“I can send him a few videos of you as well,” he continued. “Oh, I still have them.”
Mills denied the charges, saying the messages were designed “to determine whether the parties were reconciling or ‘unwinding’ the relationship.”
Columbia County, Fla., Circuit Judge James M. Swisher Jr. rejected Mills’s argument, writing in a 14-page decision that the explanation was “difficult to comprehend and for the most part incomprehensible.”
His restraining order bars Mills from contacting Langston or going within 500 feet of her residence or place of employment.
