Democrats Call for an Ethics Investigation Into GOP Rep. Max Miller

Democrats are calling for an ethics investigation into Republican Congressmember Max Miller of Ohio, who is facing allegations of domestic abuse as he runs for reelection. Miller’s ex-wife Emily Moreno, daughter of Ohio Republican Senator Bernie Moreno, claims that Miller burned her by throwing hot water at her, held a gun to her head and fractured their 2-year-old daughter’s collarbone. Miller is also accused of abuse by former Trump White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, who was in a relationship with Miller prior to his marriage to Moreno.

Mother Jones obtained around 2,000 pages of court filings and police reports pertaining to Miller, which include allegations dating back to high school. “There is an established pattern of multiple women claiming that they were abused by Congressman Max Miller,” says Abby Vesoulis, national politics reporter for Mother Jones.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

Democrats are calling for an ethics investigation into Republican Congressmember Max Miller of Ohio, who’s facing allegations of domestic abuse as he runs for reelection. Miller’s ex-wife Emily Moreno, who is the daughter of Ohio’s sitting Republican Senator Bernie Moreno, claims Miller burned her chest and stomach by throwing hot water at her, held a gun to her head, and claims he fractured their 2-year-old daughter’s collarbone. A child protection specialist reviewing their daughter’s February injury found bruising resembling a handprint, and an investigative report says Moreno recounted her child saying, “Daddy’s house is scary,” unquote. A court document quotes the daughter telling her mother, “Daddy kill you.”

Mother Jones obtained some 2,000 pages of court filings and police reports pertaining to Miller through public records requests. Those records also include allegations dating back to high school.

Politico had earlier reported Miller pushed a girl down a flight of stairs after he became enraged that she rejected his advances. Three people who were present corroborated the claim.

Congressmember Miller is also facing a defamation lawsuit from former Trump White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, who alleges Miller abused her during their relationship before he married Emily Moreno. In 2021, Grisham wrote a Washington Post essay headlined “I told the Trumps my relationship with a White House staffer had turned abusive. They didn’t seem to care,” unquote. Miller reportedly pushed Grisham against a wall, slapped her in the face, after she confronted him about alleged cheating. President Trump later endorsed Miller despite Grisham having raised her concerns with him directly.

For more, we’re joined in Washington, D.C., by Abby Vesoulis, a national politics reporter at Mother Jones, her recent article headlined “Assault, Misogyny, Verbal Threats: Records Detail New Allegations Against Rep. Max Miller.” And her latest piece is titled “Democrats Call for Ethics Investigation into Congressman Max Miller.”

Abby Vesoulis, welcome to Democracy Now! Just lay out all that’s known at this point about a sitting congressmember, Max Miller, who’s also the ex-son-in-law of the sitting Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno.

ABBY VESOULIS: Right. So, Congressman Max Miller was married to Emily Moreno until 2024, when they got a divorce. And filing through their divorce paperwork and their child custody paperwork, Emily Moreno accused Congressman Miller of multiple things that you mentioned: shoving her against a wall, throwing hot water at her chest, holding a gun to her head.

And also, their 2-year-old child broke their collarbone, and that was investigated by DCFS. And while that investigation was ultimately unsubstantiated, meaning they couldn’t prove abuse or neglect took place, Emily Moreno, in her interviews with police, said that she couldn’t rule out that Congressman Miller broke their daughter’s collarbone, because he had done these things to her.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Abby, you also note that the filings also include evidence that Miller implicitly threatened his ex-father-in-law, Senator Moreno. Could you talk about that, as well?

ABBY VESOULIS: Yeah, of course. So, in the legal filings over their custody disagreement, Emily Moreno filed for a civil protection order. And citing text messages from Congressman Miller, she included a screenshot in the filings of Congressman Miller saying something like, “You better keep your lying daughter under control, or everybody’s going to find out more about you than your wife does.” So, to me, that seemed like an implicit threat that if Senator Moreno could not rein his daughter in, that Congressman Miller was going to leak information about Senator Moreno.

And, you know, I tried reaching out to Senator Moreno’s office. They did not want to provide comment. Congressman Miller, through spokespeople, repeatedly declined requests for comment and declined answering very detailed questions. But reading the text message about “you better keep your lying daughter under control” seemed like an implicit threat to me.

AMY GOODMAN: Abby Vesoulis, yesterday, Emily Moreno filed a new restraining order against Congressmember Max Miller, her ex-husband. If you can talk about this, and then talk about what we know about Stephanie Grisham, who said he violently attacked her?

ABBY VESOULIS: Right. So, throughout my reporting, it was clear that the allegations weren’t just coming from Emily Moreno. There is an established pattern of multiple women claiming that they were abused by Congressman Max Miller.

You have Stephanie Grisham, who dated Miller when they were both working under the first Trump administration. When she published a book excerpt about her novel — or, sorry, her memoir about working in the Trump administration, she mentioned that she had been in a relationship with somebody that pushed her against a wall, slapped her. She published a book excerpt in The Washington Post. This is back in, I want to say, 2022. And Max Miller sued her for defamation. Now, the two of them came to a private settlement agreement, and Congressman Miller withdrew his lawsuit against her. Now, while the settlement agreement was private, it seems that their agreement was that neither could, you know, disparage the other in public.

But now Congressman Miller, in trying to protect his reputation as he faces these claims of domestic violence from Emily Moreno, is bringing back up things about Stephanie, and he published a recording of Emily Moreno in which she says that, you know, “I’m sorry Stephanie did to you what she did to you.” Max Miller said on social media that he thinks that is proof that he did not hurt Stephanie Grisham. Now, Stephanie says that, number one, that’s not proof that he didn’t hurt her. It’s just saying that Emily is sorry that what happened happened. But moreover, by posting that audio and making that kind of conclusion in public, that Congressman Miller is violating the terms of their private settlement agreement, so now she is suing Congressman Miller about dragging her back into the public sphere over this issue that was supposed to be settled.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And meanwhile, as all of this information comes out, what’s been the reaction of Republicans in Congress to these very serious allegations? And will any investigations happen?

ABBY VESOULIS: So, Democrats, including the Democratic Women’s Caucus, have called for a House ethics investigation. Importantly, we haven’t heard anything from Republicans, including Senator Bernie Moreno, whose daughter is at the center of all of this. He’s told other outlets that this is a private matter, that he won’t litigate things in the media, but, of course, he wants to protect his daughter and granddaughter, the granddaughter who suffered a broken collarbone. So, we haven’t heard anything from Republicans.

I also reached out to the House Ethics Committee. It’s a bipartisan committee. I reached out to their bipartisan staff director, who decided not to comment. So, we don’t know the status of whether an investigation is actually starting. We just know that the Democrats have begun calling for one.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, the record, if — in one minute, if you can talk about, from the allegation of pushing a girl down the stairs in high school, and then one interaction with law enforcement after another, also property violence, sort of uncontrollable violence?

ABBY VESOULIS: Yeah. So, like I said, this is a pattern of allegations. There was an event in high school, an alleged event in high school, in which Congressman Miller pushed a woman down the stairs. That was reported on by Politico in 2021, and three women or three people told Politico that they were there and they can confirm that that happened. I reached out to that woman, and while she understandably did not want to talk to the media about what she went through all those years ago, she told me that it remains one of the most traumatizing nights of her life. That incident was mentioned in the court filings that I was flipping through, as was another incident that Emily Moreno alleged, that Congressman Miller had had another violent incident involving a woman in college. And again, I asked Congressman Miller about this, and he declined to answer my questions. In court documents, he objected to the question rather than affirming it happened or denying it happened. But this is also just another one of the allegations he faces.

He had multiple encounters with law enforcement when he was in his early twenties and in late teen years. Punching his hand through a glass window, he cut his wrist so bad, he required surgery. There was another incident in which a police report says he punched a guy in the back of the head and then ran from police. Most of those incidents seem to — he pleaded them down, thanks to first-time offender programs. But those remain on his — on his record, as there were police encounters.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you for being with us, Abby Vesoulis. We’re going to link to your articles in Mother Jones, including “Assault, Misogyny, Verbal Threats: Records Detail New Allegations Against Rep. Max Miller” and “Democrats Call for Ethics Investigation into Congressman Max Miller.” Again, this is the investigation they’re calling for into the sitting Ohio Congressmember Max Miller, the ex-son-in-law of the sitting Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno.

Next up, we go to Ecuador, where 36 fishermen say they survived a U.S. bombing and were tortured then by U.S. forces. The investigating prosecutor was then murdered last month — this month in Ecuador. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: “Anti-Patriarchy” by Ana Tijoux in our Democracy Now! studio.