House Homeland Security Chair Mark Green engaged in an extramarital affair, the woman involved told POLITICO Friday — speaking out after a text message from Green’s estranged wife circulated among House Republicans.
In that message, first sent to a group of acquaintances on Wednesday, Camilla Green announced that the Tennessee Republican, her husband of 35 years, was leaving her for a younger woman he had met in Washington. It also included an allegation about the identity of the woman’s employer, sparking a legal threat from the company, which disputed the charge.
“He fell head over heels in love with her to the extent he wanted to marry her and start a new family,” she wrote, adding that she has tried to reconcile and “he wants nothing of it and has insisted on a divorce.”
“Satan has rewritten our marriage in his mind,” she wrote in the message, which was first reported by the Nashville Banner. “My heart is shattered. I really just don’t know how to do life right now.”
Mark Green, who has chaired the Homeland Security panel since 2023 and is in line to keep the gavel should Republicans keep their House majority in November, issued a statement through his congressional office that did not address the substance of his wife’s claims.
“This is a difficult time for my family and me, and we are currently going through divorce proceedings,” he said. “As this is a deeply private matter, I ask for privacy. I will continue to serve this district with all I’ve got, as I have for the last five and a half years.”
The story of Green’s marital infidelity has been complicated by the fact that Camilla Green subsequently said she initially pointed the finger at the wrong person. Her message identified Green’s romantic partner as a “32 year old woman that works for Axios,” the online news outlet.
In fact, Green’s relationship was with a different woman, who works in politics in Washington but has no affiliation with Axios, according to multiple people involved.
They include the woman who engaged in the affair, who told POLITICO she had an on-again-off-again relationship with Green. She was granted anonymity to clarify the situation as the message circulated on Capitol Hill over the past 24 hours.
“It is no secret that Mark is going through something personal, and I want to respect his privacy, but in the interest of making sure there is no collateral damage, I want to make sure people know that any rumors or claims of a relationship with a reporter are abjectly false,” the woman added.
Camilla Green apologized for the misidentification in a statement to POLITICO: “I want to correct the record, because I misidentified someone in that message. My husband has never had a relationship with a reporter from Axios, and I regret having said that.”
The accusation prompted an Axios attorney, Brian Westley, to send Camilla Green a cease and desist letter, insisting she “immediately set the record straight” to stop from wrongfully smearing one of their reporters — and threatening to take “further action” if she does not.
“This statement is false and per se defamatory — both to Axios and one of our Capitol Hill reporters, who has been contacted by multiple colleagues who wrongfully believed your message referenced her given her relative age and because Mark is one of her sources.”
The letter, which was reviewed by POLITICO, continued: “Your message has not only caused this reporter considerable emotional distress, it has harmed her professional reputation.”
Camilla Green’s statement did not dispute the remainder of her message, which accused her husband of becoming “intoxicated with power and adoration.”
“[H]e pushed God out of his life, me out of his life, and developed friendships with other congressmen and women having affairs and getting divorces, drinking, parties, all while hosting a weekly Bible study in the basement of our home,” she wrote.
Mark Green announced in February that he would retire from Congress, saying in a statement that it was “time for me to return home.” He thanked his wife and family “for standing beside me and for their service to our nation.”
He abruptly reversed course two weeks later, citing a request from former President Donald Trump, who had publicly called on him to reconsider. Green filed for divorce last month in Montgomery County, Tennessee.