WASHINGTON — Multiple House Republican lawmakers seethed Tuesday over a failed effort to censure Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI) over her 2019 text exchange with late sex predator Jeffrey Epstein — accusing leadership of cutting a backroom deal with Dems to spare Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) the same rebuke.
Republicans stuck together to beat back an initial effort to kill the censure resolution against Plaskett. However, the measure was rejected hours later, with three Republicans voting against punishing Plaskett, three more voting “present,” and four sitting out the vote entirely.
Had the censure resolution against Plaskett succeeded, Democrats planned to make a similar move against Mills, who has been accused of stolen valor, financial misconduct, and domestic abuse — all of which he denies.
“The Plaskett censure failed because [H]ouse leadership exchanged the vote to protect a [R]epublican that’s having a lot of issues and should NOT seek re-election,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) fumed after the failed vote.
The episode was reminiscent of a failed September vote to censure “Squad” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) over her incendiary remarks about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Democrats similarly threatened to censure Mills, which seemingly motivated enough Republicans to kill the resolution against Omar.
“Another backroom deal so Cory Mills can’t get censored for Stolen Valor. 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,” sniped Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC).
“Tonight, a handful of Republicans took a dive on a vote to strip Stacy Plaskett of her position on House intel because of her ties to Epstein. They did it to protect a Republican facing his own ethics issues from a similar vote,” added Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.).
“This backroom deal sh— is swampy, wrong and always deserves to be called out.”
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) had rolled out a privileged resolution to censure Plaskett in the wake of revelations she had texted Epstein during a Feb. 27, 2019, House Oversight Committee hearing featuring testimony from President Trump’s onetime attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen.
During that hearing, Epstein coached Plaskett to ask Cohen about high-ranking officials in the Trump Organization and texted her “Good work” after the delegate’s question period concluded.
The censure measure would have booted Plaskett from the powerful House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and called for a House Ethics Committee investigation.
“This is the problem in Washington!! The establishment protects ITSELF, and the American people get pushed ASIDE,” Norman complained after his resolution went up in flames. “What happened to accountability?”
“This just tells you how corrupt this place is. But the disgusting thing about it was four Republicans chose not to vote, three Republicans voted ‘present,’ three Republicans voted no. So it failed. And what they did was, they cut a deal,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) said in a video posted to X. “To me, it’s really disgusting.”
Mills, an Army veteran elected to Congress in 2022, has been under fire for a string of scandals and controversies.
In February, the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department began investigating accusations that Mills had assaulted a female Republican activist at his penthouse, though the victim later retracted key parts of her complaint.
The MPD had filed an arrest warrant for Mills, but it was unsigned by the then-acting US attorney for the District of Columbia.
In August, Miss United States 2024 Lindsey Langston lodged a lawsuit against Mills, alleging that he tried to blackmail her via revenge porn. She claimed to have been in a relationship with Mills from November 2021 to February 2025.
Last month, a Florida judge greenlit her request for a restraining order against him.
Additionally, Mills, who was awarded the Bronze Star in 2021 for his military service, is facing claims by several of the individuals whose lives he claimed to have saved that they have no recollection of the incident.
The congressman is also facing a review from the House Ethics Committee over concerns that he omitted or made false statements on his financial disclosures.
Mills, who is married but claimed in a May interview to be in the process of divorcing his wife, has denied any wrongdoing.
Representatives for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), and Mills did not respond to requests for comment.
