This isn’t the first time Cory Mills has faced allegations of misconduct – but the House speaker wants to talk about ‘serious’ things

Meet Cory Mills, a Republican congressman representing Florida. He is rabidly anti-abortion, incredibly anti-immigration, and obsequiously pro-Trump. Earlier this year, perhaps in a desperate bid to get Dear Leader to notice him, he introduced a bill, dubbed the “DON-ument Act”, which would make the wall on the US-Mexico border a national monument.

In the great tradition of Republican congressmen from Florida (hello, Matt Gaetz!), it turns out Mills may also be a misogynistic creep. On Tuesday, a Florida judge granted a protective order against Mills at the request of his former girlfriend, Lindsey Langston, the reigning Miss United States. Langston, who is 19 years younger than 45-year-old Mills, told authorities she started a romantic relationship with the lawmaker in 2021, when Mills was still married but reportedly separated from his wife.

According to Langston, after the breakup, Mills threatened to release nude images of her and harm any future boyfriends. The congressman has called the allegations “false” and hasn’t been charged with a crime, but, according to the New York Times, the judge said he did not find Mills’ “testimony concerning the intimate videos to be truthful” and granted an order restricting Mills from going within 500 feet of his ex’s residence or referring to her on social media. The court found that Langston “has reasonable cause to believe she is in imminent danger of becoming the victim of another act of dating violence”.