Outgoing Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) invited a woman he has been dating to testify as an expert witness at a House subcommittee hearing on a Syrian pipeline project, according to independent journalist Roger Sollenberger, who has covered the Florida Republican for nearly two years.
Sollenberger posted the claim on X Wednesday. He also said Mills has made several trips to Syria without disclosing who paid for them. No such hearing currently appears on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s public schedule, which lists no upcoming hearings at all.
Sollenberger said he could not think of a precedent for the arrangement.
I have never heard of a member of Congress calling their (secret) girlfriend as an expert policy witness.
He said he heard Wednesday morning that the hearing might get scrapped, and that several members of Congress were alarmed by the situation.
Mills chairs the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Intelligence, which gives him authority to set hearing topics and invite witnesses. He ran the panel’s July hearing on economic security zones.
Mills is on his way out of Congress regardless. He lost his August primary to newscaster Ryan Elijah by nearly 13 points, and his term — and his gavel — expire Jan. 3.
Ethics Committee Already Watching
The House Ethics Committee voted last November to set up an investigative subcommittee on Mills. Its scope covers his financial disclosures and the campaign finance of his 2022 and 2024 races, gifts improperly accepted in connection with privately sponsored officially-connected travel, special favors tied to his office, sexual misconduct, dating violence, and misuse of congressional resources. The committee noted that opening the subcommittee does not by itself mean a violation occurred.
Mills traveled to Damascus in April 2025 with Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) and asked to meet privately with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, according to Blaze News. He spent 90 minutes with al-Sharaa and Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani. Neither congressman had a State Department or Capitol Police security detail on the trip.
Kyle Shideler of the Center for Security Policy warned the episode creates an
