Florida Rep. Cory Mills (R) evaded another censure effort Wednesday night, but not without some heated criticism from a Republican colleague.
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina forced a censure vote on Mills Wednesday over "alleged stolen valor, arms deals he's under investigation for and alleged abuses toward women." Mace also went after Mills after a handful of Republicans blocked the censure of Democrat Delegate Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands, who colluded with Jeffrey Epstein during a 2019 congressional hearing.
'The more we learn about this guy and his purported activities, the worse it is.'
Mace alleged that Plaskett's censure failed because Mills cut a "backroom deal" to suppress his own censure. Similar allegations were made toward Mills back in September when he was the deciding vote to protect Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar's censure for the insensitive comments she made following Charlie Kirk's assassination.
"Another backroom deal so Cory Mills can’t get censored [sic] for Stolen Valor," Mace said in a post on X. "I have the General who 'recommended' him for the Bronze Star on record saying he never wrote it, never read it and never personally signed it. This. Is. Washington."
The two Republicans reportedly had a heated exchange on the House floor Wednesday night, with Mace calling Mills a "disgrace" and mouthing the words, "You're a piece of s**t."
Mace later addressed these outbursts in a post on X, saying the real scandal is Mills' track record.
"While Rep. Cory Mills is worried about my 'mean' words on the Floor last night — I'm worried about our national security and what sort of arms deals he or his companies have with foreign countries. I'm worried about how court records show he abuses women and had to have a restraining order set against him for it. I'm worried about how stealing the stories of other soldiers constitutes STOLEN VALOR and spits in the faces of veterans who gave it all Hold your tongue and sit this one out Mr. Mills."
The censure vote ultimately failed 310-103, with 204 Republicans and 106 Democrats defending Mills.
Only eight Republicans — Reps. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Kat Cammack of Florida, Joe Wilson of South Carolina, and Mace — voted to advance the censure measure.
Although the censure failed, Mace still called the effort a win.
"Last night was a win with either outcome of the vote," Mace said in a post on X. "Now the Left can't do any more backroom deals with Mills or use Mills as a bargaining chip whenever a Republican moves to censure another. And his investigation has been formally referred to an Ethics Subcommittee."
"However, I pray leadership will remove Mills from his committees until Ethics is done with Mills. The more we learn about this guy and his purported activities, the worse it is."
Blaze News reached out to Mills' office for comment.
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Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina is leading the charge to censure her GOP colleague Rep. Cory Mills of Florida.
Mace will force a vote to censure Mills Wednesday night after she alleged the Florida congressman dodged a similar censure effort Tuesday night by cutting a deal with Democrats.
'The swamp protects itself.'
A handful of Republicans broke from their party and prevented Democratic Delegate Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands from being censured after the House Oversight Committee revealed documents that she had colluded with Jeffrey Epstein by texting with him during a 2019 congressional hearing.
Since the censure vote failed, Mace and some of her GOP colleagues have alleged that Plaskett's protection was secured in exchange for the suppression of Mills' own censure.
— (@)
"Another backroom deal so Cory Mills can’t get censored [sic] for Stolen Valor," Mace said in a post on X. "I have the General who 'recommended' him for the Bronze Star on record saying he never wrote it, never read it and never personally signed it. This. Is. Washington."
"The Plaskett censure failed because house leadership exchanged that censure failure for the withdrawal of a vote to censure and refer Cory Mills to house ethics for investigation," Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida said in a post on X. "The swamp protects itself."
Mace is looking to censure Mills over a string of scandals, including "alleged stolen valor, arms deals he's under investigation for and alleged abuses toward women." Blaze News first reported on some of these allegations.
RELATED: Why did Cory Mills come to Ilhan Omar's rescue?
This is not the first time Mills has been accused of cutting backroom deals with Democrats.
In September, Mills was the deciding vote that prevented the House from censuring Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar (Minn.) over a series of insensitive comments she made following Charlie Kirk's vicious assassination. Mills claimed that while he abhorred Omar's views, she had a First Amendment right to express them.
At the same time, reports suggested that Mills protected Omar to squelch his own censure in the House.
Mills' office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.
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After months of pushback, the House passed a resolution to release the highly anticipated Epstein files.
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna of California co-authored the resolution to release the Epstein files and forced the House vote Tuesday using a discharge petition. Lawmakers forced the floor vote after the petition secured 218 signatories last week, including Republican Reps. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, and Massie.
'Of course we're for maximum transparency.'
Republican Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana was the lone no vote.
Although only four Republicans signed onto the petition, initially bucking their party, President Donald Trump changed course and encouraged rank-and-file GOP members to vote in favor of the resolution. Republican leadership later followed suit, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) confirming Tuesday that he would vote in favor of the resolution.
RELATED: Mike Johnson changes course ahead of key Epstein vote
"As I said on Friday night aboard Air Force One to the Fake News Media, House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party, including our recent Victory on the Democrat 'Shutdown,'" Trump said in a Truth Social Post Sunday.
Johnson echoed Trump's message for transparency but mentioned several "dangers" in the current resolution he hopes will be amended in the Senate, including concerns for victims' privacy and inadequate handling of child sexual abuse materials.
"There's a handful of Republicans, Judiciary Committee members, and a few others who are really struggling, as I have been, about whether or not they can even vote yes today because of this," Johnson said during a presser Tuesday. "Because we don't have an absolute guarantee that this will be fixed in the Senate."
RELATED: Democrat lawmaker faces censure for 'colluding' with Epstein during congressional hearing
Despite these concerns, Johnson urged the conference to "vote their conscience."
"Having now forced the vote, none of us want to go on record and in any way be accused of not being for maximum transparency," Johnson said. "So the only intellectually consistent position to have right now ... is to allow for everyone to vote their conscience and to go on record to say, 'Of course we're for maximum transparency.'"
The resolution is now headed to the Senate. If it passes, Trump confirmed that he would sign the resolution into law.
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Just one day after their shutdown fiasco, Democrats have released new Epstein emails in an attempt to incriminate President Trump — but their plan has backfired miserably.
“They magically discovered and released some new emails from Jeffrey Epstein. And you’ll never believe: They finally got him. They got him. House Democrats release Epstein emails that mention Donald Trump,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales jokes.
One email, Gonzales says, “looks pretty bad” and reveals Epstein saying the “dog that hasn’t barked is Trump,” before saying that a redacted victim “spent hours” at Epstein’s house with the now-president though he had “never once been mentioned.”
The victim’s name turned out to be Virginia Giuffre, who has “gone on record multiple times and said that President Trump did nothing wrong.”
“There is so much sworn testimony that she has provided about it. … She is on the record saying Trump couldn’t have been friendlier and that he never had sex with her or any of those underage girls,” Gonzales explains.
“The Democrats didn’t redact it because they care about protecting victims. They redacted it because they didn’t want you to be able to go, ‘I think there’s more to that. I don’t know that I buy that,’” she continues.
In another email thread between Epstein and journalist Michael Wolff discussing CNN preparing to ask Trump about his relationship with Epstein, Epstein asks Wolff what his answer would be for Trump if he could “craft an answer for him.”
“I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt,” Wolff replied.
“Of course, it is possible that, when asked, he’ll say Jeffrey is a great guy and has gotten a raw deal and is a victim of political correctness, which is to be outlawed in a Trump regime,” he added.
Gonzales, again, is not fazed by the left’s new “evidence.”
“Right off the bat, you know, Michael Wolff is not only very aware of what Jeffrey Epstein is doing because he mentions the island … and yet, instead of calling the police, dialing up the FBI, giving some sort of law enforcement or federal official or, I don’t know, literally anyone who could help these young girls who are being trafficked, this guy, instead of doing any of that, he’s just like, ‘I’m going to give PR advice to Jeffrey Epstein,’” Gonzales says.
Not only that, but Wolff’s career as a journalist has been spent writing negative books on Donald Trump.
“A Trump-hater that stands to profit off of a scandal for President Trump. Got it. Not a guy I’m willing to trust,” Gonzales says.
The last email cherry-picked by the Democrats is an email from Epstein to Michael Wolff, where he writes a redacted victim's name and the word Mar-a-Lago and says, “Trump said he asked me to resign. Never a member ever. Of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop.”
“So that doesn’t track with Donald Trump participating in anything, as he asked him to stop. We already know that Donald Trump said, ‘You cannot be a member of Mar-a-Lago any more. You cannot set foot on my property any more.’ We already know that to be true,” Gonzales comments.
Gonzales also notes that not too long ago, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) revealed that Trump was an FBI informant ordered to help take Epstein down.
“It would make a whole lot of sense,” she says.
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House Republicans passed a government funding bill late Wednesday night, bringing Democrats' record-breaking shutdown closer to a welcome end.
The continuing resolution passed in a 222-209 vote, with 216 Republicans voting in favor and 209 Democrats voting against the funding bill. Two Republicans, Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Greg Steube of Florida, voted against the bill.
'Democrats gained nothing from their shutdown while hardworking families paid the price.'
Several Democrats also crossed the aisle, with a handful voting in favor of reopening the government. Democrat Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, who is retiring at the end of this term, bucked his party, alongside Reps. Adam Gray of California, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Don Davis of North Carolina, Henry Cuellar of Texas, and Tom Suozzi of New York.
The resolution is now headed to President Donald Trump's desk, where he is expected to sign the bill into law Wednesday night and reopen the government.
The House vote took place just days after eight Democrat senators caved over the weekend and voted alongside Republicans to pass the funding bill in the Senate Monday night. These Democrats include Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Angus King (I) of Maine, and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.
Although some lawmakers crossed the aisle to reopen the government, Democrats ultimately failed to secure commitments from Republicans to negotiate health care policy.
"For over six weeks, Democrats held our country hostage over demands for health care for illegal aliens and to prove to their base they could 'stand up' to President Trump," Republican Study Committee Chairman August Pfluger (Texas) told Blaze News.
"Let me be clear: Democrats gained nothing from their shutdown while hardworking families paid the price," Pfluger added. "Now, it is time to get back to governing and delivering on the mandate we were given by the American people last November."
RELATED: Senate Republicans pass key deal with Democrat defectors as end to record-long shutdown draws near
The reason Democrats shut down the government in the first place was to force the GOP to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year.
Democrats fell short, securing only a commitment from Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to hold a vote on extending the subsidies. Notably, this offer was available to Democrats on day one of the government shutdown.
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