By Ellis Kim, CNN

(CNN) — A failed effort in the House of Representatives to censure Democratic Del. Stacey Plaskett over her text exchanges with Jeffrey Epstein during a 2019 congressional hearing sparked bitter recriminations in the GOP on Tuesday, with some conservative lawmakers alleging that a backroom deal was struck to spare one of their own from an unrelated rebuke.

Several staunch House conservatives accused their own party of cutting a secret agreement with Democrats to spare Plaskett, who represents the US Virgin Islands in Congress as a non-voting delegate, from a formal House reprimand in exchange for Democrats dropping a retaliatory censure measure against Florida Republican Rep. Cory Mills.

Democrats had planned to bring up a resolution against Mills, who has faced a swir

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