Politics
Nathaniel Lautier: A profile in courage — and bad decisions
A sitting Congressman, a former Miss America, and a restraining order. At this point, only one mechanism remains to hold him accountable: the voters of his own district. The question is whether they will use it.
Rep. Cory Mills is a case study in how misconduct can persist in plain sight when the political and media environment is overwhelmed by chaos. His controversies are serious, numerous, and ongoing. Yet they have struggled to break through a news cycle saturated by Trump-era spectacle, real-time scandals, and selective outrage.
This is what falls through the cracks when everything is breaking news.
So why is no one paying attention?
The answer is not a lack of substance. It is a fundamental shift in how attention works in the modern media ecosystem. When there is a Watergate every day, none of them feels like Watergate anymore. Stories unfold live, social media sets the agenda minute by minute, and newsrooms are forced into constant triage. What once would have dominated front pages and cable panels for weeks is now lucky to survive a single editorial meeting.
Distance matters, too. As time passes without immediate consequences, sustaining public interest becomes harder. In the past, national media needed stories to fill airtime and column inches. Today, the news cycle generates itself endlessly. As a result, stories like Mills’ are quietly deprioritized, condensed, or shelved altogether.
That reality raises an uncomfortable political question: If a congressional seat is safely red, does Republican leadership care who occupies it? Based on the response — or lack thereof — to Mills’ conduct, the answer appears to be no.
On paper, Mills was once a strong candidate. A decorated military veteran with national security credentials, he entered the race for Florida’s 7th Congressional District ahead of the 2022 Midterms with a résumé Republicans typically celebrate. But since taking office, he has accumulated a pattern of controversies that raise serious questions about his judgment, personal conduct, and fitness for office.
Mills served in the U.S. Army from 1999 to 2003 and was deployed to Iraq, earning a Bronze Star. After leaving the military, he worked as a defense contractor and later co-founded PACEM, an arms manufacturing company that claimed to support U.S. allies abroad. The company later faced regulatory and financial trouble, including actions by the Florida Department of Financial Services that led to the closure of two facilities.
Despite those issues, Mills was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2020 to the Defense Business Board, a Pentagon advisory group that President Joe Biden later dismantled. Mills announced his congressional run shortly afterward and won election in 2022 after redistricting transformed the district from blue to solidly red. He was re-elected in November 2024.
It is after that victory that Mills’ tenure began to unravel more publicly. Reports of domestic incidents involving multiple women — none of whom are his wife — began to surface. These include an alleged domestic disturbance involving Sarah Raviani and separate allegations by former Miss America Lindsey Langston, who accused Mills of misconduct, including revenge porn. Mills has repeatedly appeared in headlines for reasons unrelated to legislation or policy.
In August 2025, Langston filed for a restraining order against Mills, disclosing a recent romantic relationship. Mills remains legally married to Rana Al Saadi, though reports suggest the couple has been separated for several years.
Even before the domestic allegations escalated, Mills was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee over whether he improperly profited from defense contracts while serving in Congress. The investigation, announced in August 2024, carried into the 119th Congress. Efforts to censure him have stalled without reaching the House floor.
The situation escalated further on February 21, 2025, when Washington, D.C., police responded to a domestic disturbance call at Mills’ residence. An arrest warrant was prepared but never signed. Under ordinary circumstances, that decision alone would have triggered sustained scrutiny.
Instead, it barely registered.
Fifteen years ago, this record would likely have generated weeks of national attention. Today, it competes with a political environment defined by a nonstop crisis. Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried has argued that Mills is shielded by what she calls a corruption blanket created by Trump’s return to power. After the warrant went unsigned, Fried said in a February press release, “It’s obscene but not surprising to think that Cory Mills may get away with domestic assault because he’s one of the President’s loyal soldiers.”
Where this leaves Mills is politically precarious but institutionally safe, for now.
The ethics investigation remains unresolved. The Justice Department declined to act. Republican leadership has shown no appetite for intervention, and Trump has remained silent.
At this point, accountability rests in one place only. The voters. If Mills faces consequences, it will not be because of an Ethics Committee, a prosecutor, or party leadership.
It will be because the people of Florida’s 7th Congressional District decide that chaos is no excuse, distraction is not absolution, and silence is not innocence.
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Nathaniel Lautier is a political journalist based in Florida. He is currently completing a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science at Flagler College in St. Augustine. As a veteran of the United States Air Force, Nathaniel previously served as an intelligence analyst before pursuing a career in journalism.
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