Disgraced Congressman, 46, Moves On With Aspiring Model, 27

Just hours after a bruising setback to his political ambitions, Congressman Cory Mills was far from the campaign spotlight.

The embattled Republican instead withdrew to a $2 million beachfront retreat on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, where sources said the 46-year-old was recovering from the loss and “blowing off steam” with a 27-year-old former aspiring model.

Mills went directly to the upscale rented oceanfront home in New Smyrna Beach after losing the Florida 7th Congressional District primary earlier in August to local television reporter Ryan Elijah.

The following day, he was seen on the beach with Catherine Chils, who sources exclusively told the Daily Mail has been a frequent presence in his life over the past three years.

Three people close to Mills described the two as longtime companions. A neighbor also said they spotted the pair together the day after his defeat, spending the day seated outside in two beach chairs.

‘He had just sat outside and had kind of taken the day for himself,’ the neighbor said.

Chils denies she was at the property that day, and insists the pair are just friends.

Mills remained holed up at the beach house through the weekend, sources say.

Concern has grown over his whereabouts in the days since Republican voters brutally rejected his bid for a third term last week in a GOP primary, sources close to his staff say.

Staffers admit it is not unusual for Mills to go ‘MIA,’ but sources say his team are surprised by his lack of communication, failing to even make any public statement after his defeat and missing work obligations.

‘The fact that he went missing and the staff can’t find him or hear from him is pretty bad but not surprising. He does this all the time,’ one source told the Daily Mail.

The congressman even keeps a campaign bus he has been known to sleep in, making it harder for aides to track him down when he drops off the radar. 

Ahead of the primary election, Mills started to go quiet, skipping multiple media appearances in his campaign’s final stretch. He did not show up for two interviews with Fox News’s streaming platform that week and missed a scheduled Friday appearance on Fox Orlando’s local station.

A source involved with the planning says they were not aware that Mills would not show up for several interviews that week and were only alerted by the stations and networks.

Mills did not respond to the Daily Mail’s request for comment.

Mills saw his two terms in Congress engulfed by scandal ranging from allegations of domestic violence and revenge porn to financial misconduct, all of which he denied.

Washington DC police investigated him last year over an alleged assault at his apartment, a case that was closed after the woman recanted her claims. Mills denied any physical altercation took place.

His ex-girlfriend Lindsey Langston, a Republican state committeewoman and former Miss United States, later accused him of threatening to release explicit videos of her and to harm men she dated after their breakup.

A Florida judge granted Langston a restraining order against the congressman in October last year. The order has since lapsed, and Mills denied wrongdoing.

He is also facing a House Ethics Committee investigation into alleged campaign finance violations, misuse of congressional resources and sexual misconduct or dating violence. 

By May, the inquiry had racked up more than 20 subpoenas, thousands of documents and contact with dozens of witnesses.

The ethics probe will end when Mills leaves office in January, since the committee loses jurisdiction over former members, but the criminal investigation will follow him out the door.

Mills has denied wrongdoing in every matter.

The Daily Mail can also exclusively reveal that a Justice Department criminal investigation into Mills centers on allegations of wire fraud and other financial misconduct tied to his personal accounts. It allegedly began during the final months of the Biden administration, according to two DOJ sources familiar with the matter.

Rather than winding down his political affairs after last week’s defeat, sources say the two-term Republican bolted for the rented beachfront hideaway to lay low.

Sources say he is already planning his next act and having conversations about finding work in foreign affairs or lobbying.

‘He genuinely did not see himself losing this primary,’ one source said.

A prolonged Mills absence could become a real headache for Republicans in DC.

Mike Johnson holds a thin three-vote House majority and must pass a bill to keep the government open by the end of September. 

A bitter Mills, snubbed by Donald Trump and rejected by his own party, has little incentive to show up and lend his vote. 

Chils, 27, grew up in DeLand, Florida, and now lives in North Carolina. She admitted Mills helped pay her college tuition. ‘When I was in a time of need to finish school, he helped me,’ she said.

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A source close to Mills says the pair have been dating on and off for several years – a claim Chils denies. ‘I have not been in a relationship with Cory. We have been friends,’ she said.

The two met while Chils was enrolled at Western Governors University, where she graduated last year, the source said. Mills affectionately calls her ‘Cat.’

Chils also denied working as a model, but her profile on the casting site Backstage lists her as one, alongside professional photos. 

Confronted with it, she conceded: ‘It was a career I looked at but never pursued. I used head shots for my marketing firm.’

Their involvement stretches back years, sources say, including while Mills was dating other women, an overlap Chils denies. One source says it took off in 2023.

Over the weekend, Chils posted an Instagram video of herself at the beach. 

She told the Daily Mail it was filmed recently at Mills’s $2 million beach pad ‘when he had a gathering with other local people,’ but denied being there on August 19, the day after his primary defeat.

The neighbor, who did not know her name at the time, said they recognized her from the post and identified the property by the distinctive rock rubble behind her.

Chils also posted a photo from inside a helicopter over the Grand Canyon, in an Instagram highlight reel from an August 2023 Las Vegas trip. 

One source said Mills ‘would take girls on first dates, while being married, mind you’ and treat them to ‘helicopter rides around the Grand Canyon.’

Mills has never denied dating other women while legally married. He says he and his wife have been separated since 2019 and locked in prolonged divorce proceedings, and dismisses the subject as a private, politicized ‘personal matter.’

A judge found Mills’s sworn testimony in the Langston case untruthful, and parts of it incomprehensible. 

At the hearing he acknowledged the relationship but blamed the allegations on a political rival.

Mills married his first wife, Rana Al Saadi, in 2014. He says they began living apart in 2019. 

In November 2021, he began dating Langston, then 22, when he was 41, according to the judge’s ruling. 

That relationship lasted more than three years, ending in early 2025 and Mills was legally married throughout. His divorce was not finalized until February 2026.

Four sources with first-hand knowledge of Mills’s relationships say he dated several women at once while convincing most of them he wanted something real. 

‘Cory is the kind of guy these women think will eventually marry them, but he never will,’ one said. ‘He makes every woman feel like they are the only one in his life.’

Mills arranged his travel to overlap with several women he was seeing, splitting time between them on a single trip, sources say. 

He showered them with expensive gifts, including Birkin bags, even as he fell into campaign debt.

His own campaign committee shows just $81,000 in cash and more than $2 million in debt. 

Most of that is owed to Mills himself, from personal loans to his campaigns. 

‘He doesn’t live like he is a millionaire, he lives like a billionaire,’ one insider said.

The federal scrutiny hanging over Mills began long before his political career imploded.

The Justice Department has been examining Mills’ finances for months, including alleged overseas business dealings, according to NBC News.

Two sources with knowledge of the investigation now tell the Daily Mail it centers on allegations of wire fraud and other financial misconduct tied specifically to Mills’s personal accounts rather than his campaign.

Those sources say the probe opened around November 2024, during the final months of Joe Biden’s presidency.

The Justice Department has never publicly confirmed the investigation, and Mills has not been charged with any crime.

Mills blasted the reporting on the investigation when it first emerged as ‘fake news’ and a political ‘witch hunt.’

Voters last week showed him the door anyway, handing former local Orlando anchor Ryan Elijah a resounding 14 point victory in the Republican primary for Florida’s 7th Congressional District.

Though Trump had endorsed Mills in February, he notably left him off a list of Florida Republican incumbents he backed on the eve of the primary after pressure mounted from Republican leadership to abandon the scandal-plagued incumbent.

After the loss, Trump called Mills ‘a friend of mine’ but said he had told him to ‘get out of the Race,’ complained that Mills ‘wouldn’t listen’ and blessed Elijah with his ‘Complete and Total Endorsement.’

Chils posted photos on her Instagram on Tuesday showing her outside the Cannon House Office Building, which just so happens to house Mills’s congressional office.

She says she was simply resurfacing old pictures that were not reflective of where she was currently. 

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