Ethics watchdog says Congressman Cory Mills may have lied about finances and isn't cooperating

• Cory Mills' military background and personal fortune helped him sweep into Congress in 2022.
• It's unclear how the Florida Republican got $1.8 million to loan to his campaign, according to Congress's ethics office.
• Mills didn't fully cooperate, the office said, and the full ethics committee is investigating. He denied wrongdoing.

Cory Mills, whose military background and fortune from a grenade-manufacturing business helped him win a Florida congressional seat in 2022, is being investigated by Congress for possibly lying on his personal financial disclosures and campaign finance filings, according to records released Thursday.

The board of the Office of Congressional Conduct, formerly called the Office of Congressional Ethics, said that Mills's inconsistent financial statements raised questions about how he got $1.8 million to fund his campaign in 2021 and 2022. The report was prepared in August 2024 and kept confidential until now because the House Ethics Committee is continuing to investigate.

The office also said Mills, who has consistently disclosed a large ownership stake in Pacem Defense and related businesses called ALS and Pacem Solution International, appeared to be violating federal laws and House rules that prohibit members of Congress from contracting with the government.

"The OCE found that from January 2023 to present, Pacem Defense/ALS, has been actively contracting with the federal government, securing close to $1,000,000 in federal contracts for munitions and weapons, distributed to prisons across the country," the report said. "Specifically, since January 9, 2024, 94 contracts have been awarded to entities owned by Rep. Mills."

Mills told Business Insider in 2023 in response to questions about his business with foreign governments that he had divested from those businesses, but an attorney for the Pacem companies would later only confirm that he wasn't the "100%" owner. His most recent public financial disclosures, submitted August 2024 but covering 2022, still list ownership of the Pacem companies.

According to USASpending.gov, the federal government — mostly the Bureau of Prisons — spent $200,000 on Pacem Defense in its last fiscal year. Since its creation, the company has secured roughly $3 million in contracts, the website shows. In addition to grenades, Pacem and ALS sell tear gas and less-lethal rounds.

The Congressional ethics office said it couldn't make sense of the corporate structure of Mills' businesses, and said Mills refused to explain them. He also refused to turn over his tax returns, the report said.

The ethics office recommended that 15 subpoenas be issued to people and businesses including firms that contracted with Mills' campaign and executives in the Pacem companies.

Mills' response, dated September 2024, was also published by the ethics committee. Mills' lawyer Charlie Spies said in the response that the Federal Elections Commission had dismissed complaints against Mills after concluding that he had enough money to have made the loans reported to his campaign. The FEC said it wasn't its job to determine if his congressional ethics disclosures were accurate, however.

In January 2021, Pacem announced Mills and his wife, Rana Al Saadi, as executive chairman and executive vice chairman respectively. Mills recently told The Floridian, a conservative news website, that he and Al Saadi were in the process of getting divorced and have been for two years. Last month, DC Metropolitan Police responded to a call of a possible assault involving Mills and another woman.

Mills has denied wrongdoing and said his divorce and relationships are "personal" matters that he won't discuss.

Like many of his fellow Floridian House Republicans, Mills backed Trump over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis during the 2024 GOP presidential primary. He remains close to the White House. He is currently working on legislation to codify Trump's "Department of Government Efficiency."

"Congressman Mills is committed to complying with all laws and ethics rules and is pleased that the Federal Election Commission recently dismissed a complaint with similar allegations," a spokesperson for Mills said when reached for comment. "We trust the House Ethics Committee will come to a similar conclusion."

A lawyer for the Pacem companies didn't immediately reply to a comment request.