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When it comes to recent public revelations about U.S. Rep. Cory Mills’ personal life, finances, military record, and work history, the Republican Florida congressman tends to brand things as lies that are, in fact, true.
Mills — the Florida congressman who has been the subject of numerous Blaze News articles about the veracity of his statements on his military service, employment by a security contractor, and even his 2014 marriage at a Virginia mosque — has been busy lately on social media branding people as liars who have stated facts.
'He is either extremely confused, astonishingly ignorant, or breathtakingly dishonest.'
As social media debates continue on Mills’ rocky relationship with the truth, Blaze News presents a handy top 10 list of Mills’ controversies.
When asked to provide comment for this article, Mills’ spokeswoman, Jillian Anderson, provided a two-word reply: “All gossip.”
1: Marriage by radical Islamic cleric
On July 12 on social media, Mills told a reader that reports that he was married at a Virginia mosque by a radical Islamic cleric are “false” and “misleading.” This was a 180-degree reversal of what Mills acknowledged to Blaze News in a May 7 article, “GOP Rep. Cory Mills explains why he was married by a radical Islamic cleric.”
Mills told Blaze News that while he was married at the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia, he knew nothing of the mosque’s history or of Sheikh Mohammed Al-Hanooti’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood or his reputation as a prolific fundraiser for the terror group Hamas.
According to the Commonwealth of Virginia marriage register, Mills was married to Rana Al Saadi on June 8, 2014. The imam who performed the religious ceremony was Al-Hanooti, who listed his address as Dar Al-Hijrah, 3159 Row St., Falls Church.
Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center Blaze News
Al-Hanooti is perhaps best known as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation Hamas financing trial and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing plot. Al-Hanooti served as the imam at Dar Al-Hijrah from 1995 to 1999. In a 1998 khutbah, or sermon, Al-Hanooti said, “Allah will rain his curse on the Americans and the British,” and, “The curse of Allah will become true on the Jews.”
The Dar Al-Hijrah mosque has ties to some of the most infamous terrorists, including 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Hani Hanjour, who attended the mosque in early 2001, and Anwar al-Awlaki, a prominent al-Qaeda propagandist and terror leader. Al-Awlaki was linked to the radicalization of individuals including Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter who killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 in November 2009, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab — the Underwear Bomber — who tried to detonate explosives hidden in his skivvies on a Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas Day 2009.
2: Muslim, Catholic, or Protestant?
Mills has said he did not convert to Islam, although the mosque where he married Rana Al Saadi in 2014 had rules forbidding a non-Muslim man from marrying a Muslim woman. Five of Mills’ associates who spoke to Blaze News said Mills told them that he had converted to Islam.
Robert Spencer, founder of the Jihad Watch website and a foremost expert on radical Islam, told Blaze News he sees no way Al-Hanooti would have performed a wedding with a non-Muslim groom and a Muslim bride.
“Al-Hanooti had multiple ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. ... Any imam who had their approval, and who approved of the Brotherhood, had to be well versed in Sharia and loyal to its provisions,” Spencer said. “Sharia stipulates that a Muslim woman may not marry a Christian or any other non-Muslim man. This is based on the Qur’an. ... Thus it is virtually certain that Al-Hanooti, as a knowledgeable and believing imam, required Mills to convert to Islam before he married Rana Al Saadi.”
In its guide on the religious affiliation of members of the 119th Congress, Pew Research lists Mills’ religious faith as “Protestant unspecified.”
Host Michael Voris of Church Militant described Cory Mills as a “committed Catholic patriot” in a March 2022 interview.Church Militant via Wayback Machine
The Floridian wrote that Mills was a “devout Catholic” in an August 2022 article on the Seventh District Republican primary for Congress: “Al Saadi, who worked for the Trump administration in Iraq gathering intelligence, is a ‘believer in God’ and attends Mass with ... Mills, who is a devout Catholic.”
“Mills himself has a rosary tattooed on his left arm and recently spoke with conservative Catholic news site Church Militant in March about his run for Congress,” the Floridian article continued.
In March 2022, Mills appeared on the Church Militant network for an interview with Michael Voris, who praised Mills as a “committed Catholic patriot.” Voris said Mills is a new breed that represents a break with the sordid past of fake Catholic politicians who shill for abortion and so-called same-sex marriage in the halls of D.C. power, then show up for Mass on Sunday.
'At the end of the day, I’m going to have to answer to the Almighty.'
Voris said the former type of Catholic politician was a “wicked, rotten-to-the-core” person who was “self-serving, self-absorbed,” and “power hungry.”
“And they’ve been the bane of American politics for more than half a century. And they have been the driving force behind the destruction of the nation,” Voris added.
Mills acknowledged that he will answer to God for using his skills for good.
“At the end of the day, I’m going to have to answer to the Almighty, and he’s going to ask me what did I do with the skill set, the capabilities, the opportunities, the things that he had blessed me with,” Mills told Voris. “What have I done with those skills, or as we call, our talents? And I have to answer to him and say that I did everything that I could with the talents or the skills that he had provided me, the blessings he had given me.”
Spencer said Mills’ triple identity is especially problematic for Muslims.
“If all three claims are true, then he is either extremely confused, astonishingly ignorant, or breathtakingly dishonest,” Spencer told Blaze News. “He can’t be all three at once, as they’re mutually exclusive.”
“If he is claiming to be a Christian and a Muslim and his Muslim associates find out, he will find them less than welcoming,” Spencer said. “They might give him a break once since he is a convert, but they’ll talk with him and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
3: Single and lonely?
Cory Mills said he was single, alone, and lonely. Looking back, it was an odd, uncomfortable conversation starter during an Oct. 3 Mercury One helicopter relief flight helping victims of Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina.
On the helicopter were seven people, including Mills, Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck, and BlazeTV anchor Jill Savage. They had just finished discussing an exhausting day touring the hurricane damage, delivering relief supplies, and flying rescue sorties. Then came the personal discussion.
“Cory was talking a lot on the flight back,” Savage recalled. “He spoke about the founding of our country, rattling off talking points about one constitutional amendment after another. Then he began speaking about his personal life.”
“No one asked him about this on the very first day we met him,” Savage said. “He said he was ‘completely single, there’s absolutely no one in my life,’ and was ‘very lonely.’”
At that very time, Mills was married to (he says separated from) Rana Al Saadi and also in a long-term romantic relationship with 27-year-old Iranian-American activist Sarah Raviani, the founder of Iranians for Trump. Raviani’s name became public in February 2025, when she called police to Mills’ ritzy D.C. penthouse to report domestic violence.
Metropolitan Police Department officers responded to the address on Maryland Avenue for a “report of an assault.” According to the incident report, the assault involved the use of hands and feet to force Raviani from Mills’ residence. Raviani recanted her complaint, and no charges were ever filed. Mills denied there was any sort of physical altercation.
Rep. Cory Mills (white cap) meets with Adam Smith and Glenn Beck on a Mercury One tour of hurricane-ravaged North Carolina on Oct. 3, 2024.Adam Smith via Instagram
Savage said she was in D.C. when the assault story broke. It made her think back to Mills’ statements on the helicopter that he was “completely single” and had no one in his life. Raviani told police that Mills was her “significant other” going back more than a year. It became clear that the story he told on the October helicopter ride was false.
“That is one very big, bold-faced lie,” Savage said on the May 15 episode of “The Mandate” on BlazeTV. Savage disclosed that Mills had asked her on a date and she agreed, but no date ever took place.
Savage said she has since heard from women who were also approached by Mills with the same “I’m very lonely” speech, which prompted the anchor to realize it was serendipity that her Mills date never materialized.
“It was,” she said, “actually a blessing in disguise.”
4: Non-Rangers don’t lead the way
Some of the men who worked with Mills at military contractor DynCorp took great umbrage to Mills claiming he had been an elite Army Ranger during his time in service. Mills listed his imaginary Ranger service on an application for a shift leader job at DynCorp. He also made the claim verbally, according to several men who worked with him. But his official service record does not include time with the Rangers.
The 75th Ranger Regiment is the U.S. Army’s elite special operations force, made up of some of the best soldiers in the world. According to the Army, the Rangers “conduct large-scale Joint Forcible Entry Operations and execute surgical Special Operations Raids around the globe in high-risk, uncertain, and politically sensitive areas.”
Rangers and former Rangers don’t take kindly to pretenders.
Jesse Parks, Mills’ supervisor during the last of his time with DynCorp, said he witnessed a Ranger veteran and fellow DynCorp employee chase Mills down to give him a verbal lashing. “He flat stopped Cory in the street, and he says, ‘If I hear one more time that you have said you were a Ranger, I’m gonna beat your ass within an inch of your life and send you home on a medical flight.’”
Cory Mills (left) pictured with former members of the 75th Ranger Regiment, an elite special-operations group that Mills never belonged to.Photo courtesy of Scott Kempkins
It was just such an issue that prompted the State Department to require its contractors to certify the service records, training, and awards of all employees. Mills was warned time and again to turn in proof of his specialties and training. For months, he failed to do so.
“I found Cory and I told him flat out, ‘Cory, if I don’t have your bio and your supporting documentation in my hand by 1900 hours [7 p.m.] today, you have to go get on an airplane tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. and leave,’” Parks said.
Parks said after issuing the order, “That was the last I saw Cory, because he piled up all of his DynCorp s**t and his State Department serialized items, weapons, this, that, and the other, on his bed, and he walked out the gate. Nobody ever saw him again.”
Mills said the stories are “fabricated nonsense.” Mills said he requested early release so he could return to the United States with his girlfriend, who was leaving about the same time.
“I’m sorry, but I didn’t go walk around and knock on everyone’s door to go, ‘Hey, by the way, guys, I ended up getting a contract release for two days,’” Mills said. “I saw, like, a week or two weeks earlier than my contract was set to expire, because I wanted to go home with a nice girlfriend.”
5: Not blown up twice overseas
Mills has long claimed that he was the victim of roadside bombs in Iraq. Although these claims have been called out publicly as fabrications, Mills’ official congressional biography still claims he was “struck twice” with explosive devices while overseas.
In one incident, Mills was in an armored vehicle motorcade on March 15, 2006. Blaze News confirmed that Mills was present at this scene. However, photographic evidence and sources have called into question his story and the seriousness of his alleged injuries.
A Mills campaign video makes the claim that he was wounded twice while deployed. The two roadside incidents occurred after Mills left the Army.Mills for Florida
Mills told Blaze News he suffered a concussion when the Suburban SUV in which he was riding was damaged by an IED. “I ended up hitting my head,” he said. “Was it some severe maiming wound? No. I’ve got the actual document that shows where I was hit.”
As evidence, Mills pointed to a certificate of appreciation he received from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad as proof of his brave actions.
“I had a concussion. So a concussion isn't being wounded? Knocking your head off an actual armored vehicle door and having to go get treated and have three days down, that's not being wounded, right? So what is your definition? Do I need to lose an arm? Do I need to be shot in shrapnel? Just tell me. Tell me what your definition of wounded is. Because apparently, [traumatic brain injury] is not an external wound.”
Blaze News pressed him on his claim that he suffered from a traumatic brain injury. Mills responded: “No, I actually just got reviewed by the PA and the doctor there, and they basically told me to monitor myself for the next 24 hours.”
Kern said blank templates of this certificate of appreciation were all over the place at the time. “There were like 35 guys that got that same thing,” he said.
Cory Mills (middle) and Scott Kempkins (right) worked for DynCorp in Iraq doing security missions. Courtesy of Scott Kempkins
In the second incident, on April 19, 2006, Mills’ motorcade was hit by a roadside bomb as it made its way toward the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity. According to a summary report obtained by Blaze News, the two lead vehicles in the convoy had turned right toward the Ministry of Electricity, when the follower Humvee was struck by an array of explosively formed penetrators with five or six linked devices.
The roadside bomb array was triggered by an insurgent on a nearby rooftop using a wire that ran from his perch along a roadside wall and to the device.
Mills’ vehicle was 50 yards away from the one that sustained bomb damage, and his colleagues said he was never wounded.
Blood left on Cory Mills’ pants after a mission wasn’t his; it was spilled by a sergeant in his convoy, colleagues said.Photo courtesy of Scott Kempkins
Mills points to a photograph showing him with a large blood stain on his right pant leg after the mission. One of Mills’ colleagues who was wounded in the attack said that blood did not belong to Mills.
“Cory was was absolutely not wounded,” said Scott Kempkins, who suffered injuries from the bomb.
“I got hit in the shoulder, the neck, and the leg,” Kempkins said. “And then the guy in the turret took a little bit of shrapnel to the side of his face. That was it. Cory’s vehicle was already around the corner and about 50 yards down the street. It would have been impossible for him to be wounded.”
6: No military sniper school
Mills has touted his experience as a sniper on network news after the near-assassination of President Trump by Thomas Crooks on July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Mills did complete a sniper course to become a designated defense marksman for contractor DynCorp, but his comrades in arms told Blaze News he never qualified for that course because he was not a graduate of an accredited military sniper school. That became apparent when the DynCorp snipers went to the shooting range to re-qualify.
“He was supposed to have been this, this super duper military trained sniper and, all this s**t, and they [DynCorp] sent him to their sniper school,” Parks said. “He got through it, but he really struggled. It was like he was learning it for the first time, as one of them told me. If he was some hot s**t sniper from the Army, it should have been a breeze.”
“We would look over, and Cory would be doing s**t like on ballistic calculators, you know, like apps,” Kern said. “Everyone’s sitting there going, ‘Dude, it literally takes you longer to put the information in than it should take you to do this in your head.’”
Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) is featured on the website of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. “I like long range and precision fire shooting,” Mills said. National Shooting Sports Foundation
“So everyone was picking up on stuff like that. ‘Cory, what the f**k do you mean? What, you’re asking what grain bullet we’re using? Dude, we only use match ammo. It’s 168 grain. It’s the same s**t you’ve been shooting in the military as a sniper.’”
Kern added: “I’ve trained with SS snipers. I’ve trained with SEAL snipers. I’ve trained with law enforcement, L.A. County SWAT guys. I know and I understand that we all have different training, and I understand that the formulas are different."
'I know facts are unusual and unfamiliar thing for you.'
“But the stuff that [Mills] was saying ... I remember thinking, ‘What are we doing? Is this out of a movie?’ Snipers have a verbiage ... sniper observer monologue. ... This guy doesn’t know s**t about being a sniper.”
The National Shooting Sports Foundation includes a photo on its website of Mills firing at a rifle range. The feature quotes Mills: “I like long range and precision fire shooting.”
7: The master’s degree that wasn’t
Mills has touted three college degrees in various online biographies. Included on that list is a master’s degree in international relations and conflict management. On Mills’ LinkedIn page under education, it states: “American Military University, Master’s degree Candidate, International Relations and Conflict Resolution, 2013-2020.”
The political website Conservapedia and the Florida Politics website both said Mills earned a master’s degree.
According to the private for-profit school based in Charles Town, West Virginia, Mills did not earn a master’s degree from AMU. Stacy Robinson, registrar service specialist at the American Public University System, the parent organization of AMU, said, “He did not confer a master’s degree from AMU.”
Mills did earn a bachelor’s degree in sports and health science from AMU on Aug. 15, 2010, according to Robinson.
8: Misleading photos with Trump, Wiles
On April 26, Mills' Instagram account posted a series of photographs related to his recent trip to Syria. Included in that image carousel were photos of Mills alongside President Donald Trump and his chief of staff, Susie Wiles. The captions implied the photos were related to the trip to Syria. The photos were shared to Mills' Instagram account, and he was listed as a collaborator on the post.
Blaze News learned, however, the images were not from Syria — or even from 2025. They were taken during a campaign trip to Iowa in the summer of 2023.
RELATED: Rep. Mills’ risky road trip through Syria raises eyebrows
Photos shared on Cory Mills’ Instagram account in April 2025 implied that they were related to his trip to Syria to meet with President Ahmed Al-Sharaa.Cory Mills/Instagram
“Some moments in life are more than memories. They are turning points,” Tarek Naemo of the Syrian American Alliance for Peace and Prosperity wrote in one caption, below a photo of Mills sitting with Trump and Wiles in an aircraft. “Traveling to Syria was a reminder that even in the hardest places, hope can rise.”
Mills visited Syria on April 18 with U.S. Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.), a trip sponsored by SAAPP. Mills had a private 90-minute meeting with Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa and Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani. According to journalist Roger Sollenberger, Mills asked for a private meeting with Al-Sharaa that Congressman Stutzman did not attend.
9: Spiritual advisers?
In describing himself as a Christian, Mills often cites the Word of Faith Family Church in Altamonte Springs, Florida, as his spiritual home. He speaks of Pastors Steve and Cheryl Ingram as spiritual advisers.
However, Blaze Media learned that Mills has attended worship services at Word of Faith only two times since he launched his congressional campaign in 2021 at the home of the Ingrams.
Cory Mills appeared often in photos with Cheryl and Steve Ingram, pastors at the Word of Faith Family Church in Altamonte Springs, Fla.Cheryl Ingram/Instagram
Blaze learned that Cheryl Ingram posts photographs on social media anytime someone in the public eye comes to services at the church. According to archives of her social media, the last time Mills appeared for worship was in February 2024.
Mills has appeared at public events and political rallies and has been photographed with the Ingrams. He launched his congressional campaign from their living room in 2021. Sources inside the church told Blaze News the Ingrams are not Mills’ spiritual advisers.
10: Your rent is late
Rep. Cory Mills pays nearly $21,000 a month for a D.C. luxury penthouse in a swanky building that overlooks the Tidal Basin, the Wharf, and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial.
At least, he’s supposed to pay that much in rent.
But according to an eviction lawsuit filed in D.C. Superior Court, Mills slipped $85,000 in arrears by not paying rent from March to July. That was after he was served notice in January that the building management company intended to sue over the more than $18,000 he apparently owed at that time.
According to a lawsuit filed in DC Superior Court, Cory Mills owes more than $85,000 in back rent on a penthouse suite in this exclusive waterfront property.Top photo by Rebeka Zeljko/Blaze News; bottom photo Bozzuto Management Company via X.com
When journalist Sollenberger posted the eviction details on social media, Mills attacked him as a “biased hack” and offered the excuse that he tried to pay the rent online but kept getting technical error messages.
“I know facts are unusual and unfamiliar thing [sic] for you, but here’s just the past two months where you can see I’m repeatedly asking for payment links and again, as I tried with management today, it failed to process,” Mills wrote on July 14.
A spokesman for Bozzuto Management Company, which manages Mills’ building on Maryland Avenue Southwest, told Blaze News that once eviction proceedings begin, online payment portals are disabled for the renter. Otherwise, a tenant could make a small partial payment and the eviction clock would reset.
According to Sollenberger’s reporting, Mills has paid more than $15,000 in late fees since he began renting the D.C. penthouse in June 2023. That’s approximately $850 per month “for the privilege of paying rent late every month,” Sollenberger wrote on X on July 14.
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