5 former colleagues of Rep. Cory Mills say he told them he became a Muslim — as girlfriend claims Blaze News report 'entirely untrue'

Five former associates of Florida Rep. Cory Mills (R) have now confirmed to Blaze News that Mills converted to Islam around the time he was married in 2014. Meanwhile, Mills' girlfriend, in an apparent attempt to reassert control over the narrative, has attacked Blaze News' previous reporting on the matter.

Her rebuttal doesn't square with the testimony of Cory Mills' former associates.

Mills has recently come under intense scrutiny. A Feb. 19 domestic disturbance at Mills' luxury penthouse not only prompted a police response but brought to light the Republican congressman's apparent misrepresentations about his new romantic relationship and unfinished divorce.

This in turn prompted Blaze News to dig deeper into Mills' situation — an exploration that has yielded a number of strange insights into the Republican who rose to power on a pro-Christian, America First platform. Among them: Mills was married by Mohammed Al-Hanooti, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a Hamas fundraiser; the marriage was reportedly conducted in a mosque that likely would have required the groom to be Muslim; and at least one associate of Mills indicated that the congressman became a practicing Muslim after marrying Iraq native Rana Al Saadi — a conversion he emphatically denied in a conversation.

Here is an Instagram post with Raviani and Mills.

Iranian-American activist Sarah Raviani suggested to the Daily Mail "that the claims made in the Blaze article are entirely untrue." This was the first time since her domestic disturbance call that Mills' 27-year-old girlfriend has publicly announced their relationship.

According to the Daily Mail, the police report on the incident claims officers heard Mills “instruct her to lie about the origin of her bruises.” In addition to confirming she was in a relationship with Mills — who is married to Al Saadi — and asserting that "no assault took place" in February, Raviani told the Daily Mail that Mills' faith should not be up for debate, claiming that they attend Christian services together and pray in private.

'He said, "We need to go over there and take care of it."'

"He has not only attended church with my family and me, but we also pray together privately — just the two of us — where there would be no reason to pretend or perform for others," said Raviani. "Additionally, we pray together publicly before meals. Any assertion that he is a Muslim is false, and I can personally attest to his Christian faith."

The Daily Mail appeared to insinuate that the couple's Easter travels together served as evidence of her claims. As Blaze News has already reported, Mills, who owns an international weapons company, traveled to Turkey and Syria over Easter, where Mills also met with foreign government officials from both countries,

RELATED: GOP Rep. Cory Mills explains why he was married by a radical Islamic cleric

Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Since the first Blaze News report was written, more former associates of Mills have confirmed to Blaze News that Mills converted to Islam around the time he was married. Four of them spoke to Blaze News on background for fear of reprisal, but one was willing to go on the record. Max Woodside, CEO at Paladin LLC, is among those not buying what Mills and his proxies are selling.

Woodside, who at one point served as Mills' team leader while with the American private military contractor DynCorp and had multiple run-ins with the future congressman in the Middle East, recently went on the record with Blaze News, noting, "I'm not afraid of him. He knows we're done."

Woodside indicated that "sometime around 2013," after he returned from Afghanistan, he received a call "out of the blue" from Mills.

"He mentioned that he had a friend — I guess it's his current wife that he's divorcing, whatever the hell she is," said Woodside. "I guess she was having problems with somebody over there. He said, 'We need to go over there and take care of it.' I said, 'Brother, whatever we do is going to come back to you.' ... I said, 'You're always going to have problems because she's a Muslim and you're a Christian.'"

According to Woodside, Mills said, "No, I converted. I'm a Muslim."

This alleged admission stood out to Woodside, who told Blaze News, "They're my sworn enemy."

Woodside noted, however, "As far as the Muslim stuff [goes], I only heard him say it one time. I never saw him convert. I never saw him put any head rags on. He just told me he converted to Islam. I said, 'All right, whatever, dude. We're done.'"

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Robert Spencer, the founder and editor of Jihad Watch, cast doubt on whether Mills could have been married at the notoriously extreme Dar Al-Hijrah mosque in Virginia without converting.

"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," Spencer previously told Blaze News. "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.”

Spencer speculated that maybe "the whole thing was quick and involved Mills … at the mosque with little understanding of what he was saying … so he can dismiss it now and may not have even realized what he was doing, but he wouldn’t have been able to marry Al Saadi otherwise."

Mills’ former team leader’s interpretation of the conversion is that Mills “said that to get the freaking girl.” Woodside told Blaze News that “he’s not a Muslim or a Christian as far as I’m concerned. He just said what he wanted to get what he wanted, which is what he always does.” Others who knew Mills at the time, however, told Blaze News that Mills seemed to have truly converted and remained Muslim after his wedding.

When pressed about the unlikelihood that a radical mufti like Al-Hanooti would officiate the marriage of a non-Muslim, Mills told Blaze News that the situation was complicated.

His then-fiancée needed to visit a dying relative in Iraq, Mills said, but "would've been arrested" if she entered Iraq without a marriage certificate because her first husband in Iraq "wasn't a good man" and "all he had to do was say she wasn’t divorced within Iraq, therefore the marriage is still valid."

According to Mills, Al-Hanooti was "the only Iraqi imam that her mom [could] get in contact with who would do this for us.

"I will do anything to protect my family. So if having her mother find someone who is willing to just sign something so she doesn't get arrested when she goes to visit her dying uncle, who's her last remaining male Al Saadi," said Mills. "Yeah, you're damn right, I have no problem whatsoever, because it didn't change my faith, it didn't change who I am, it didn't change the church that I went to. So yeah, enjoy your hit piece."

Blaze Media editor in chief Matthew Peterson noted that "we merely asked Mills what religion he was and who married him. If Mills had simply admitted that, yes, he converted to Islam to marry a Muslim woman or help her visit her family or whatever, that would be one thing. Instead, he threatened Blaze Media with libel, defamation, malice, and slander before we published a word. I find that odd."

Woodside, along with many other former associates of Mills who spoke to Blaze News, had some harsh words for the congressman: "He's always going to say [whatever he needs] to get him whatever he wants, which makes him a good politician because that’s what they do."

"He's a die-hard conservative on the face of it," Woodside told Blaze News, but "Cory's out for himself. That's all he's ever been."

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