Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.)
Prominent Republican Representative charges “bigotry” when asked why he was married by a Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas-linked Radical Islamic cleric
May 8, 2025
Reprinted from Jihad Watch
It looks as if this guy got in too deep with matters he knew nothing about and is now trying to cover his tracks. That would explain his rage at those asking him questions about this.
“GOP Rep. Cory Mills explains why he was married by a radical Islamic cleric,” by Peter Gietl, The Blaze, May 7, 2025:
An unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and Hamas fundraiser officiated the wedding of a prominent Republican congressman. And the story gets much stranger.
Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.), a rising star in Republican circles and on TV news, told Blaze News he was married by a radical Muslim cleric but did not realize it at the time.
Mills rocketed to the heights of political celebrity over the past four years, thanks to his television appearances, several high-profile rescues of Americans from Israel, Afghanistan, and Haiti, and the support of President Donald Trump. Mills was an Army medic from 1999 to 2003 and a private subcontractor in Iraq and the Middle East from 2005 to 2009. He has represented Florida’s East Coast 7th Congressional District since 2022, when he rode Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “red wave” into office.
Running on a pro-Christian, America First platform, Mills’ website says: “Cory is a father, patriot, combat veteran, entrepreneur, foreign policy expert, and true American conservative.”…
Blaze News reached out for comment from both Mills and Al Saadi to set the record straight, asking for confirmation concerning their religious status and the officiant of their wedding. Rana Al Saadi has not responded.
In a combative, often heated, near hour-long phone call with Blaze Media editor Peter Gietl, Mills confirmed he was married by Al-Hanooti, but vehemently denied converting to Islam. “It’s pretty pathetic. This attempt has been used so many times, and it’s baffling to me. Not to mention the fact that I am a Christian — I’m not an Islamophobic. I’ve lived in Middle Eastern cultures. I think that the radicalized stuff is pretty harmful and disgusting, but I would say that on any side of things. But this has been attempted so many times. And it’s just downright offensive at this point,” Mills stated.
It is unclear how many times anyone has “attempted” to ask Mills about his marriage certificate other than during his congressional primary race. While few paid attention at the time, Sabatini and his supporters were called “bigots” by supporters of Mills for bringing the certificate and related issues up in the race.
Mills said that asking these questions was out of bounds. “And I don’t think you guys understand, because I spent 10 years in the culture in that region. You guys need to educate yourself, because you come across very ignorant, bigotry, and it just makes you guys sound very, very, I guess, lack of American plurality.”…
Al-Hanooti had deep ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. According to a 2003 FBI memo cited in reports by the Investigative Project on Terrorism and Global Muslim Brotherhood Watch, Al-Hanooti was believed to be a key fundraiser for Hamas in the United States. His associations, along with his rhetoric, cast a long shadow over the mosque even after his departure.
Mills sets the record straight?
These facts were all well known in 2014, when the then-77-year-old Al-Hanooti, serving as mufti of the D.C. area, officiated the marriage of Mills and his wife and listed the Dar Al-Hijrah mosque as his address. Since Mills has publicly presented himself as Christian for years, people who first encounter the document are puzzled. According to the mosque’s website, the individuals it marries must be Muslim. A few weeks ago, after Blaze News called the mosque inquiring about the certificate, this requirement was apparently removed from the website.
At least one associate of Mills, speaking on background for fear of reprisal, told Blaze News that Mills became a practicing Muslim after marrying Al Saadi.
Although it seems highly unlikely that a mufti like Al-Hanooti would officiate a marriage of a non-Muslim, Mills says that the situation was complicated….
Blaze News reached out to Robert Spencer, the founder and editor of Jihad Watch and one of the country’s foremost experts on radical Islam, on whether Mills could have been married there without converting to Islam.
It doesn’t sound plausible. Al-Hanooti had multiple ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. … Any imam who had their approval, and who approved of the Brotherhood, had to be well versed in Sharia and loyal to its provisions.
Sharia stipulates that a Muslim woman may not marry a Christian or any other non-Muslim man. This is based on the Qur’an. … A Muslim man may marry a Christian woman … but a Muslim woman cannot marry a Christian man and become part of his household, for then the Christian community would grow at the expense of the Muslim one, and Islam must dominate.
Thus it is virtually certain that Al-Hanooti, as a knowledgeable and believing imam, required Mills to convert to Islam before he married Rana Al Saadi.
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