Mike Johnson unwilling to condemn Cory Mills despite citing daughters as reason ‘we have to protect women’

House Speaker Mike Johnson refused to condemn a member of Congress under investigation for sexual misconduct and dating violence despite citing his daughters working on Capitol Hill as the reason for the need to protect women staffers.

Johnson was asked by The Independent about female staffers feeling it necessary to go to the media to detail stories of sexual misconduct by lawmakers, rather than report through the formal protocol.

“You may know this, I have two daughters who work on Capitol Hill, on committee staffs,” he said. “I’m a father. I’m not just the Speaker of the House. I’m a member who is directly, you know, involved in this. For that very reason, we have to protect women and anyone who feels like there’s any inappropriate behavior whatsoever.”

But Johnson so far has refused to condemn Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.). In October, a state judge hit Mills with a restraining order after his ex-girlfriend claimed that he had threatened to release nude images and blackmail her. Mills has disputed the claims.

In November, the House Ethics Committee announced it had opened an investigation into the two-term Florida congressman for a litany of allegations, including whether he “engaged in misconduct with respect to allegations of sexual misconduct and/or dating violence.”

The questions about Mills come following the resignation of Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and the subsequent resignation of Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas).

Swalwell ended his campaign for governor and his congressional career after multiple media reports detailing inappropriate sexual conduct with staffers, including a former staffer saying he sexually assaulted her on two separate occasions.

It also triggered Gonzales’s resignation. He had previously come before the House Ethics Committee over allegations he had engaged in an extramarital affair with a former staffer who later killed herself.

Before that, plenty of Democrats and a handful of Republicans had called for both men to be expelled.

The pressure only grew on Tuesday when Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida resigned after a House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations that she stole $5 million in FEMA money meant for Covid-19 vaccinations. The Florida congresswoman maintained her innocence despite the resignation.

Republicans and Democrats had expressed openness to removing Cherfilus-McCormick in exchange for Mills.

But Johnson defended the process of the Ethics Committee to reporters.

“There’s always been marital infidelity, there’s always been despicable behavior,” he said. “And so what that means is the House Ethics Committee is an essential component of this institution. They keep the faith in the institution by policing their own members.”

But many Democrats expressed dissatisfaction that they are willing to police their own, while Republicans so far have been unwilling to do the same.

“If you could be the party of family values, you should value family and not condone violence in a home against somebody living there,” Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.), the chairwoman of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, told The Independent.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), a rape survivor, filed a resolution to expel Mills from the House of Representatives.

But the move has quickly become a tit-for-tat and Mills all but dared Mace to do so.

“Why won’t you call your resolution you filed to the floor for a vote?” Mills said on social media. “Is it because you didn’t think you would get called out?”