The wife of the chairman of the powerful House Homeland Security Committee said he filed for divorce last month after having an affair with a younger woman, The Post has learned.
Camilla “Camie“ Green accused her husband, Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), of “having an affair with a 32 year old woman” in a group text sent Wednesday to other lawmakers that was reviewed by The Post.
Green’s wife charged that the other woman, whom she did not name,was employed by political news outlet Axios, but according to a cease-and-desist letter obtained by The Post, Axios’ in-house counsel called the claim “false and per se defamatory.”
“Your message has not only caused this reporter considerable emotional distress, it has harmed her professional reputation,” Axios content counsel Brian Westley wrote to Camie Green.
“We therefore insist that you immediately set the record straight by sending a short follow-up text to the group that states: ‘I made a mistake when I wrote that Mark had an affair with a woman working at Axios. That is not true, and I apologize for the distress and harm I have caused to anyone my message might have impacted.’”
Camilla Green told Politico later in a statement: “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.”
“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 mysterious woman also claimed to the outlet.
In a separate statement, Mark Green, 59, confirmed: “This is a difficult time for my family and me, and we are currently going through divorce proceedings. 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 the last five and a half years.”
“I have offered reconciliation, and he wants nothing of it and has insisted on a divorce,” Camie Green said in the message, which a congressional aide told The Post was also forwarded via email to offices on Capitol Hill.
“Satan has rewritten our marriage in his mind. I am being quite open about this as 1) I cherish the prayer of any who are willing and 2) I want to make others aware of how readily available ‘predators’ are for our husbands,” she added.
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“If my story can prevent this tragedy from happening to someone else, I will tell it.”
Camie Green’s letter goes on to discuss how lawmakers in Washington “can become intoxicated with power and adoration” while serving far away from their families, saying that her husband “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.”
“I am still praying for him and hoping God will do a work in his heart, but my hope is dwindling. He is no longer wearing his wedding band and his will is dug in,” the congressman’s wife lamented.
Green will face Democrat Megan Barry, the former mayor of Nashville, in the Nov. 5 general election.
