The wife of House Homeland Security Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) sent a letter to House Republicans accusing the lawmaker of engaging in an extramarital affair.
Green,59, announced last month that he was filing for divorce from his wife Camilla Green, 59, after 35 years of marriage, citing irreconcilable differences.
But in a letter sent to Green’s colleagues this week, his wife accused him of leaving her for a younger woman he met in Washington.
“He fell head over heels in love with her to the extent he wanted to marry her and start a new family,” she wrote in the letter, which was first reported by the Nashville Banner. “He is living life greatly deceived. I have offered reconciliation, and he wants nothing of it and has insisted on a divorce.
“Satan has rewritten our marriage in his mind,” she added “My heart is shattered. I really just don’t know how to do life right now.”
Green subsequently released a statement asking for privacy during this “difficult time for my family and me.” He did not address his wife’s claims.
But, the story gets more complicated as Camilla Green has landed herself in hot water for misidentifying her husband’s mistress.
In the letter to members of Congress she identified the woman as a “32 year old woman that works for Axios.” But Green’s mistress told Politico that though she works in politics, she has no affiliation with Axios.
“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 said.
An attorney for Axios sent Camilla Green a cease and desist letter calling the statement false and defamatory.
“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 said.
“Your message has not only caused this reporter considerable emotional distress, it has harmed her professional reputation,” it 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.”
Still, Camilla Green is standing by the rest of her message, which accused her husband, a self-identified conservative Christian, of becoming “intoxicated with power and adoration.”
“He 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.
Green announced earlier this year that he would not seek re-election, but the lawmaker changed his mind weeks later and is currently on the ballot for re-election in November. If Republicans keep their majority in the House, Green is expected to remain as chair of the Homeland Security Committee.
