Mike Collins is running for the U.S. Senate in Georgia. There is an open House Ethics Committee investigation into whether his congressional office spent taxpayer money on things it wasn't allowed to.

On Tuesday, August 25, 2026, Sen. Jon Ossoff held a press conference about it. Politico's Erin Doherty reported his remarks:

"Congressman Collins must cooperate with this investigation, he must commit to testifying and he must explain to the public and the press why he has refused to cooperate, why he has obstructed, and why he has stonewalled this investigation to date."

An opponent saying that in an election year is politics. What makes it worth your attention is that a nonpartisan ethics office said the same thing first, in writing, back in January.

What the ethics office found

The Office of Congressional Conduct is the nonpartisan, quasi-independent body that reviews ethics complaints before passing them to the House Ethics Committee. In January 2026, its report on Collins became public.

Its finding: there was "substantial reason to believe" that Rep. Collins "used congressional resources for unofficial or otherwise unauthorized purposes."

Two more findings sat beside it, in the same formula. Substantial reason to believe Collins "retained an employee who did not perform duties commensurate with the compensation the employee received." And substantial reason to believe he "discriminated unfairly by dispensing special favors or privileges by retaining an employee with whom his Chief of Staff had a personal relationship."

The employee was a paid district intern in his Georgia office.

Strip the formal language out. A member of Congress's office is alleged to have put a person on the taxpayer's payroll because she was involved with the chief of staff, and to have paid her more than the work was worth.

The chief of staff at the center of it, Brandon Phillips, is no longer on payroll.

And then the part that isn't about the intern

The report contained one more finding, and it's the one that should bother people regardless of what the underlying allegations turn out to be.

The Office of Congressional Conduct said Collins "refused to cooperate" with its review — and recommended that the House Ethics Committee issue him a subpoena.

The report files that recommendation under a heading that says plainly what it is for: "Information the OCC Was Unable to Obtain and Recommendation for the Issuance of Subpoenas." It is what the office asks for when the people it needs to hear from won't answer.

Two accounts that cannot both be true

Here is Collins' campaign, in a statement from spokesperson Meyer Siegfried on Tuesday afternoon:

"Rep. Collins has fully cooperated with the House Ethics Committee on this bogus, politically motivated complaint and looks forward to the committee fully clearing him in short order."

And here is the nonpartisan office that reviewed the complaint: he refused to cooperate, and should be subpoenaed.

The campaign statement is technically about the Ethics Committee, while the refusal finding was about the Office of Congressional Conduct — two different bodies, and a careful reader will notice the seam. But the campaign's framing is that Collins has been cooperative throughout, and the written record of the office that actually reviewed the complaint says otherwise.

The Ethics Committee is now running its own inquiry. It does not comment on pending cases.

The rest of the campaign's statement was that Ossoff "would know if [he] weren't too busy abandoning Georgia to suck up to liberal activist donors in the Hamptons." That's an answer about the Hamptons. It is not an answer about the intern.

This is the second taxpayer-money question about his office

In July we wrote about a separate one: Collins spent more than $400,000 of official taxpayer office money on television ads that look nearly identical to his campaign ads, right down to featuring a Trump endorsement — something House rules do not allow official funds to be used for.

Different allegation, same account. Both are about the difference between the money Georgians give a congressman to serve them and the money a candidate raises to get himself promoted.

Why this matters in a Senate race

Georgia's Senate race is one of the most closely watched in the country, and whoever wins it will help decide control of the chamber. Voters get to weigh a candidate's record on the things that reach them — healthcare, grocery prices, the beef and farm economy.

They also get to weigh whether the candidate answers questions when a nonpartisan office asks them.

Collins can end this argument any time. He can testify. Ossoff's demand — cooperate, commit to testifying, explain the refusal — is a demand any constituent could make, and it costs a person with nothing to hide nothing at all.

What the record shows

In January 2026 the nonpartisan Office of Congressional Conduct found substantial reason to believe Mike Collins used congressional resources for unauthorized purposes, and that he kept on the payroll a district intern who was in a romantic relationship with his chief of staff and whose work didn't match her pay. The same report said Collins refused to cooperate with the review and recommended that the House Ethics Committee subpoena him. His campaign says he "fully cooperated." The chief of staff is off the payroll, the Ethics Committee inquiry is still open, and Collins is asking Georgia to send him to the Senate in November.

Sources

Ossoff presses GOP opponent Mike Collins on House Ethics probe — Erin Doherty, Politico, August 25, 2026.

OCC Report and Findings, Rep. Mike Collins, Review No. 25-7636 — Office of Congressional Conduct, adopted September 24, 2025, released January 5, 2026.