Thread by @SollenbergerRC

The still untold story about GOP Rep. Cory Mills is a massive sleeper scandal for an outlet with resources to take an eye off the Trump ball: Money, sex, international arms deals, stolen valor claims, wildly shady finances. Here’s the gist, most of it from public record. (1/X)

In 2021, Mills ran for Congress in Florida as a MAGAfied war hero & won, despite owning & living in a McLean VA mansion. But when he ran, his arms company was in money trouble. And Mills made some financial moves that happened to coincide with his campaign.

It’s probably easiest to center this story on Mills’ company. PACEM Defense (and related entities) is an int’l arms dealer. (For a sense of where we’re headed, PACEM has an unpaid federal tax lien of $600,000 from 2022, per Va. UCC filings. They paid a separate one last year.)

For another sense, Mills’ network of companies have landed federal contracts while he’s been in Congress. Includes hundreds of thousands to subsidiary Amtec Less Lethal Systems (ALS, Inc), some of which—with DOJ—are CURRENTLY in progress. Check em out on usaspending.gov

But when Mills launched his campaign in 2021, he was restructuring PACEM debt. Canadian lender Waygar Capital—which had already loaned to PACEM—bought up more debt weeks after Mills filed to run. The next month, Mills—who put his house up for Waygar—put $200K into his campaign

But Mills has never reported any liabilities to his Canadian lender, as ethics rules require. He’s also failed to report he’s director of a Canadian entity called PACEM North Canada Inc—created the month they got their first Waygar loan, in 2019:
ised-isde.canada.ca/cc/lgcy/fdrlCr…

Back to PACEM. Created in 2015 in VA, PACEM Defense went dormant. Mills reinstated it three years later, in 2018. Here’s some good background on the company and Mills’ international arms dealing history from @insider in 2023: businessinsider.com/rep-cory-mills…

In 2018 Mills opened a HQ branch in Perry, FL. PACEM also got Small Business Admin loan, via Va. bank Atlantic Union. Source w/direct knowledge said PACEM wasn’t a typical AU client, adding Mills’ $4M VA home was top collateral & a lucrative contract was coming—but it never came

In Oct 2018, PACEM—which Mills' wife also ran—bought Wisconsin arms maker Amtec Less Lethal Systems (ALS). Mills was removed from filings in 2023, but never listed his 2021 & 2022 chairman position on disclosures, as ethics rules require. (ALS gets DOJ $) prnewswire.com/news-releases/…

Then in April 2019, PACEM got its first loan from the Canadian lender, Waygar Capital. This seems to be when the trouble really starts. Here is a great backgrounder on Waygar, including about Mills and PACEM opmwire.com/ninepoint-wayg…

In 2019, Waygar loaned PACEM $13M (Canadian) w/potential $10M increase. Mills is personally liable, per UCC filings in Va & Fl. Waygar also got patents from ALS that same month, which apparently lapsed for nonpayment in 2023—while Mills was in Congress—but were reinstated.

-Waygar’s site——is suddenly down. Don’t know why. Here’s what it said days ago
-Waygar/PACEM share a board member: Rick Hillier, ex head of CN Armed Forces
-PACEM site doesn’t disclose Hillier dual roles
-The Waygar fund wasn’t looking so hot this year waygarcapital.com

Things went awry. An ongoing suit shows PACEM quit paying principal on SBA loan & defaulted. COVID hit, SBA offered loan subsidies. PACEM restructured so the govt would pay down the principal PACEM hadn’t. SBA caught the default & halted subsidies. (Judge from hearing & ruling👇)

For some reason PACEM waited 3.5 years to file this lawsuit against the SBA (Dec 2023) to demand the monthly subsidy payments it said SBA owed. When the court dismissed, PACEM appealed. That’s ongoing—a sitting congressman still suing the SBA—with a hearing set for next month

The suit is odd for a few reasons. The amount is only $180K, and the Waygar loan is 10s of millions. Waygar bought the debt partly bc of the SBA subsidies, PACEM claimed (see below), but that debt purchase came a full year after SBA had already cut PACEM off......

The timing is also odd: December 2023, the same month PACEM entered into a contract to ship millions of worth of grenades to Ukraine via Czech company DSS. DSS is suing PACEM for failure to deliver the grenades; PACEM sued back. Also ongoing. More here:

AMTEC also got a COVID loan—and a much larger one, more than a million dollars.

In February, PACEM sued Customs & Border Patrol for information related to that lawsuit, specifically about grenades bound for Ukraine that CBP seized in 2023. That’s right: Mills’ company raked in millions from Ukraine military aid! More here:

I promised sex. Mills & wife are allegedly divorcing. In Feb, he reportedly assaulted his longtime girlfriend at their shared DC condo building. I learned there’s more to be reported about what Mills had been up to with her. Let’s just say it sounds Gaetzy
apnews.com/article/cory-m…

I also promised stolen valor. I’ve learned House Democrats were very recently alerted about stolen valor & false records claims filed against Mills—an Iraq veteran—with Army Human Resources Command, the FBI, the DOJ, and a US Atty’s office.

There’s obviously a whole lot more to churn through, but I’ll stop here for now. Happy hunting, reporters. (And I really do wonder why the Waygar Capital website is suddenly down.)

TO BE CLEAR: She was not underage! But it is absolutely very very Gaetzy.

Forgot the cherry on top: Cory Mills—who is up to his eyeballs in foreign debt, foreign lawsuits, foreign arms deals, and even has an unreported foreign company—sits on both the Armed Services Committee AND Foreign Affairs Committee (where he chairs intel and oversight)