Fishback Owns His Mistake: Retracts Donalds and Mills Claim, Says He ‘Bore False Witness’

James Fishback, the former Republican candidate for Florida governor, publicly retracted his accusation that Reps. Byron Donalds and Cory Mills were under federal investigation, and apologized to both men.

“I am writing this without consulting my lawyer because it is the right thing to do, regardless of the legal implications,” Fishback wrote on X. “In early August, I made a terrible mistake by claiming that Byron Donalds and Cory Mills were under federal investigation.”

“I received this information from someone I trusted, but I accept the DOJ’s public statement that neither man is under investigation, which means that I bore false witness,” he wrote. “As a Catholic, I take the Ten Commandments seriously. After speaking with my priest and going to confession, I have a moral obligation to publicly retract my statement and apologize.”

Fishback made the original claim at an August press conference days before the Republican primary. He said a whistleblower had approached his campaign with what he described as “a disturbing pattern of evidence,” tied to two trips Donalds and Mills took to the MGM National Harbor resort in Maryland in May and November 2024, and displayed text messages he said showed the two congressmen were together there on those dates, WTSP reported.

At the time, the Justice Department said the claims were false. Donalds’s campaign called the accusations a “defamatory sideshow.” “We are at that point in the campaign where people are just throwing anything they can. The desperation speaks for itself,” Donalds said then.

Donalds won the Republican nomination and faces Democrat David Jolly in the race for governor on Nov. 3. Fishback finished third in the primary with 10.4 percent of the vote, according to National Review.

The retraction came a day after Fishback told students at the University of Virginia that he intends to run for president in 2028.