Why House Republicans Are Protecting Cory Mills

The Capitol Hill ethics purge is poised to spare Rep. Cory Mills — at least for now.

The pressure on Reps. Tony Gonzales and Eric Swalwell to resign Tuesday amid serious sexual assault accusations from former staffers have shown there are limits to what lawmakers will tolerate from their colleagues. And Mills, a Florida Republican, has for months been under scrutiny for allegedly breaking campaign finance rules and threatening to release nude videos of an ex.

“He should be expelled,” Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.) said in an interview Tuesday.

But key leaders and several rank-and-file members from both parties signaled this week they will wait for the conclusion of an active House Ethics Committee investigation into Mills before moving to punish him. That will include House Republicans protecting Mills from being expelled — a lawmaker could force an expulsion vote as soon as next week — until the panel releases a final report into its findings — which could come at any time — according to three Republicans granted anonymity to share private conversations.

Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar of California said in an interview Tuesday he hadn’t yet considered his position on Mills' expulsion; Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York told reporters he would wait to confer with his members before weighing in on the matter. Multiple members leaving a House Democratic leadership meeting Tuesday also said they did not yet know of a party strategy to address a Mills ouster effort.

At the same time, Democrats have given no indication they plan to fight Republican plans to force a vote next week on a resolution to expel another Florida lawmaker, Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick. The Ethics Committee will meet Tuesday to recommend a formal punishment after finding her guilty last month on more than two dozen counts, ranging from campaign finance infractions to stealing money from FEMA. She has maintained her innocence.

It has left Mills feeling emboldened. He said in an interview Tuesday he told Speaker Mike Johnson he was “unfairly lumped into this” with Swalwell and Gonzales as well as with Cherfilus-McCormick. Unlike Cherfilus-McCormick, he is not under federal indictment. Also unlike Swalwell and Gonzales, he is not facing charges of an inappropriate relationship with a staffer — something Mills said Johnson has acknowledged.

“If the metric for expulsion” was simply being investigated by the House Ethics Committee, he said, “wouldn’t many people in this entire chamber be expelled for the idea of an investigation?”

Moves to spare Mills and not Cherfilus-McCormick is a clear sign that House members are content to defer to the infamously slow, notoriously secretive House Ethics process — even as they face a groundswell of national support for rapid accountability for allegedly illegal and inappropriate conduct on Capitol Hill. The dynamic has become so entrenched that internal and external pressure campaigns, like those against Texas Republican Gonzales and California Democrat Swalwell, appear to be the swifter mechanisms to remove lawmakers from office than formal expulsion votes.

“I have a three part test — Has the member admitted to the conduct in question? Has there been a finding by a court? Or has there been a finding by the Ethics Committee?” said Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), who pushed for the successful expulsion in 2023 of former New York Republican Rep. George Santos for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. “I don't think that the Mills case meets any of those three criteria.”

Ultimately, House members of both parties have rationalized they can police themselves through bureaucratic, internal processes. Members can swiftly step aside on their own volition — as in the case of Swalwell and Gonzales this week — or they can continue to serve for months, if not years, until their cases resolve.

“You're innocent until proven guilty, and they should go through the Ethics Committee, and if they are guilty, then there should be the appropriate censure or perhaps expulsion if it's serious enough,” said Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) in an interview Tuesday.

Van Drew was also skeptical of rumblings that Democrats might swap an expulsion of Mills for Cherfilus-McCormick.

“There are people [on] each side, on the Democrat side and the Republican side, that are so mad at the other political party they're going to go for blood no matter what,” he said. “So I think both of them are in the same boat. I don't think there's any prisoner swap here.”

Mills, in the Tuesday interview, maintained that he had confidence in the Ethics process, though it’s not clear where the Ethics Committee stands with its investigation into the lawmaker. Johnson told reporters Tuesday he is “looking into” it.

But Republicans have quietly worried about the emerging accusations against Mills for some time now. The GOP’s narrow House majority has complicated the prospect of leadership engaging in any sort of accountability — deference to the ethics process notwithstanding — and the loss of Mills’ seat could jeopardize must-pass legislation in tipping the scales ever so slightly in favor of Democrats.

It hasn’t stopped at least one Republican, Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, from campaigning for Mills’ reckoning. She unsuccessfully sought to censure Mills for his alleged improprieties, which include omissions or misrepresentation in his financial disclosures; violations of campaign finance rules; illicit involvement in federal contracts while in office; and stolen valor.

“Any member of Congress engaged in illegal activity or in violation of House rules I will vote to expel. Period,” said Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.).

But many lawmakers — Republicans and Democrats — said Tuesday that they want to see a Mills Ethics inquiry fully play out before supporting his expulsion.

“If there's expulsion votes, if they're political, I'm not interested,” Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), the chair of the centrist New Democrat Coalition, said. “If they are based on facts established by process, I'm gonna follow the facts.”

Meredith Lee Hill and Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.