Most politicians who own a business try to make it sound boring. Cory Mills did the opposite. In a 2022 campaign ad, the Florida Republican put himself in tactical gear, fired a tear gas launcher at the camera, and delivered a line about what he does for a living:

"I came home and started a company making riot-control munitions for law enforcement. You may know some of our work."

Then the kicker: "I'm Cory Mills, and I approve this message. Because if the media wants to shed some real tears, I can help them with that."

He was not exaggerating the "you may know some of our work" part. That is the story worth telling.

What the company actually sells, and to whom

In October 2018, Mills's company Pacem Defense completed the purchase of AMTEC Less Lethal Systems — known as ALS — along with its factory and training complex in Perry, Florida. Mills, Pacem Defense's chairman, became chairman of ALS's board of directors too.

The press release said what the purchase was for. Pacem intended to use the new production and training capacity to expand into the Gulf Cooperation Council nations, the Middle East and Africa, East Europe, and Asia. "PACEM is very excited about the expansion of our business and the direction we are heading," Mills said at the time.

Ten months later, that expansion showed up in photographs from Hong Kong.

Hong Kong, 2019

During the 2019 pro-democracy protests, journalists and demonstrators in Hong Kong photographed the spent casings police were leaving on the street and posted them online. The branding was readable.

The Miami New Times traced two of the manufacturers back to Florida in August 2019. One was Defense Technology, owned by Jacksonville-based Safariland. The other was ALS — "part of Pacem Defense Corporation," operating out of Perry.

Among the munitions identified was ALS's 1202 rubber rocket, a projectile of rubber and plastic designed, in the company's own language, to produce "blunt trauma and pain compliance." Reporter Manuel Madrid noted that Pacem had bought ALS the previous October specifically to reach "emerging markets" in the Middle East, Africa, East Europe, and Asia.

Hong Kong's police fired those weapons at people demanding the right to choose their own government. The rounds came from a factory in Florida owned by a man who would be elected to Congress three years later — and who now sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the panel with jurisdiction over American arms exports.

Then it came home

The next year, the same category of product was used on Americans.

Politico reported in April 2022 that Pacem's tear gas was used against Black Lives Matter protesters in the United States in 2020, which drew the attention of the House Oversight and Reform Committee the following year.

Mills did not distance himself from it. Asked about the sales, he said Pacem was "proud" to sell tear gas to law enforcement agencies in 2020, pointing to looting and vandalism at some demonstrations, and said he was "thankful that our officers have less lethal options available to ensure order and preserve lives."

You can hold the view that police need options short of a firearm. That is a real argument. It is not the argument Mills made in his ad, which was that he would enjoy using the product on journalists.

And it isn't an abstraction. We've written about what those weapons did at Standing Rock, where police used tear gas, rubber bullets, sound weapons and water cannons on demonstrators in temperatures in the low 20s — and about the Republican who later celebrated the state's $38 million payout for the policing without mentioning the tribe.

He took the government check, too

While Mills was building a brand on toughness and self-reliance, his companies were taking pandemic relief money from the federal government.

According to Politico's reporting, AMTEC Less-Lethal Systems collected more than $1 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans and Pacem Solution International collected $173,000. Both were forgiven — meaning taxpayers covered them and nobody paid them back.

This is a pattern on this site, not a one-off. Kevin Hern helped write the rule that let his McDonald's company get $1.07 million forgiven, then argued student debt relief made working people pay for someone else's choices. Mike Kelly took $974,100 and six weeks later voted to keep the list of recipients secret. The money was always fine when it was theirs.

The conflict he has never actually resolved

Here is the part that should trouble anyone regardless of what they think about riot control.

Mills sits on the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committees while his family's arms and munitions business sells to foreign buyers. Business Insider reported in March 2023 that Mills claimed he had divested from Pacem — yet he was still listed as executive chair on the company's own website when the story published. Pacem then took the page down and called it "outdated."

Pacem's chief legal officer, Joseph Schmitz, would say only that it would be inaccurate to call Mills the sole owner. He would not say who actually owns it.

Don Sherman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington summed up the arrangement: "It's an obvious conflict of interest, a no-brainer to anyone with common sense."

The same reporting found Pacem owing $48 million to a Canadian lender — nearly five times the company's highest potential valuation — and Florida workers' compensation records showing the munitions plant shut down twice in two years for failing to pay workers' comp insurance premiums. The people making the tear gas were the ones left unprotected.

The grenades

One more thing, because it tells you how he thinks about all of this.

In January 2023, to celebrate being named to the Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees, Mills mailed his new House colleagues inert 40mm grenades as a welcome gift. The accompanying letter read: "it is my pleasure to give you a 40mm grenade, made for an MK19 grenade launcher."

Munitions are the family business. Getting on the committees that touch that business was the occasion. The grenades were the party favor.

The bottom line

Florida's 7th District votes in a Republican primary on August 18. Its congressman is under a House Ethics investigation and a reported federal criminal investigation, and his own party's members are backing someone else.

But strip all of that away and the underlying job description stays the same. Cory Mills got rich selling weapons that governments fire at people in the street — in Hong Kong, and in American cities — took more than a million dollars in forgiven federal loans while doing it, and won a seat on the committee that oversees where American weapons go, without ever showing anyone who owns his company now.

Then he made a commercial about how much he'd like to use the product on reporters.

Source

• GOP hopeful sold tear gas used on Black Lives Matter protesters — Politico, April 2022. Photo: Politico, via Yahoo News.
• Two Florida Companies Provide Anti-Riot Bullets to Hong Kong Police — Manuel Madrid, Miami New Times, August 14, 2019
• Rep. Cory Mills founded a company that sells arms to foreign governments. He won't say which ones. — Business Insider, March 2023