Among the 67 files U.S. Rep. Max Miller’s lawyers sent to newsrooms on Sunday is a recording Miller made of his then-wife in August 2024, in which she tells him she went through his backpack because she believes he has a drug problem and says she found needles next to his bed and photographed them.

Miller’s legal team distributed it as evidence in his own defense, and Miller directed viewers to the files himself during his livestream.

On the recording, he laughs at the accusation, repeatedly denies it and offers to be tested.

“Okay. Go for it,” he says. “Test for me whatever you would like.”

Miller has not been publicly charged with possessing or distributing illegal drugs. He was charged with operating a vehicle impaired after a 2011 crash into a light pole while a student at Miami University, and has long maintained he was not impaired; Mother Jones reported last month that newly obtained toxicology records from that crash showed MDMA and Klonopin in his system. Mother Jones reported that Miller’s spokesperson did not answer its questions about those findings.

TiffinOhio.net found no drug-test result in the 67-file package or in the public court records it reviewed, and no photograph of a needle appears in the files distributed Sunday. The recordings do not establish what Moreno photographed, who placed it there, or whether Miller used illegal drugs.

What is on the recording

TiffinOhio.net is not publishing the package or the audio. The quotations below come from transcripts TiffinOhio.net produced from the recordings Miller released.

The exchange begins as an argument about privacy. Miller says he has never gone into Emily Moreno’s phone, computer or bag. She cuts in.

“I have gone into your backpack because I truly do believe you have a drug problem,” she says.

“Okay. What drugs?” Miller answers.

“Uh, well, first it was weed, and then I found needles next to your bed,” she says.

“You found needles?”

“Yes, I did. And I took a picture of it. You can try to deny it to me.”

Miller laughs. “Okay.”

“I don’t know why that’s funny,” Moreno says. “That’s actually really fuckin’ scary.”

What follows is a sustained denial. Miller tells her the needle was not his and was not by his bed. She asks whose it was, then, if it was in the bedroom drawer.

“No idea, but I can tell you 1,000%, I’ve never had a needle in my bedroom drawer, 1,000%,” Miller says. Moments later: “I have never had a needle in my bedroom drawer and that is not a lie.”

“Well, then where are they, Max? Because that’s where I found it,” Moreno says.

“Nope. I don’t have needles in the house. You can come check,” he says.

She says she will send him a photograph. “Please, do,” Miller says. “I would love to see what this looks like.”

A few minutes later in the same conversation, in a second excerpt Miller also released, he goes further.

“I am super happy to go take any drug test, and to take any type of test that you would like me to take, uh, in or out of court,” he says.

“I don’t know why you’d be thrilled with that, Max,” Moreno replies. “I’m not tryin’ to screw you. I’m honest to God scared.”

Why Miller released it

The summary his lawyers wrote to guide reporters through the exhibits presents the recording as evidence that Moreno manufactures allegations against him on a schedule set by money and custody rather than by events.

The packet says the needle claim surfaced one day after Miller told Moreno, in another recorded conversation, that he would stop paying her car insurance and condominium fees. It says Moreno later acknowledged in a September 2024 recording that she had already decided to leave the marriage before the needle claim, that she told no one about it except her attorney, and that she had known for months there was an innocent explanation — prescribed testosterone-replacement therapy.

Two of those three claims hold up against the recording. The third does not.

Moreno does say she had already decided to leave, and she gives that as her reason for not raising the needle with him at the time. “That freaked me out, but I had already made that decision that I was going, which is why I didn’t bring it up to you,” she says. She also says she told only her attorney, sent no photograph and tried to research it herself online.

But on the innocent explanation, the recording does not support what the summary says it does.

Miller raises the therapy himself, telling Moreno he had disclosed it to her eight months earlier and that she had acknowledged it. “I told you I was doing TRT and that I had stopped,” he says.

“What’s TRT?” Moreno asks.

Miller explains that it stands for testosterone replacement therapy. Moreno tells him what she understood at the time: “What you told me was you did it several times, and that was it.”

“Correct,” Miller says.

“Right, so when I found a needle, I had no idea what the fuck it was,” she says. “I also asked you several times if you were still doing it, and you said no.”

The recording establishes that Miller raised the therapy as context. It does not establish that anything Moreno says she found was connected to it.

Miller’s account also shifts between the two recordings. On Aug. 20 he denied having needles in the house: “Nope. I don’t have needles in the house. You can come check.” By Sept. 2 he no longer disputed that Moreno may have found something, but denied putting it there.

“I didn’t put that in there, okay?” he says. “I’m telling the honest to God truth. That shocked the fuck outta me.”

He also tells her he had prepared for the question: “I already have a test for everything that you guys are gonna ask for.” No such test result appears in the package.

Drug allegations have followed Miller through this case. Mother Jones reported last month, based on more than 2,000 pages of court filings and police records obtained through public-records requests, that the file includes allegations of drug use alongside allegations of violence against multiple women. Miller has strenuously denied all of it. In court papers, Miller alleged that Moreno used drug-use claims to limit his time alone with their daughter.

Where this fits

The recording is one of 22 audio and video files in a 199-megabyte package that Miller’s side distributed on Sunday, the same morning he went live on X for roughly 20 minutes to deny abusing his ex-wife or their 2-year-old daughter and to say he would not leave his re-election race.

Within the hour, U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno — Miller’s former father-in-law — said Miller is a danger to his daughter and should not serve in the House. Miller replied on X that Moreno was hiding from his own media circus and that the statement was “all political.”

A TiffinOhio.net review of all 67 files found several defects. The summary written for reporters cites Exhibit 517, but no file corresponding to that exhibit appears in the package. In the section on the hot-water allegation, a citation ends with the apparent drafting note “with exhibit cite]” where the reference should be. The package states that personal identifiers including home addresses and dates of birth have been removed; TiffinOhio.net found dates of birth in seven files and residential addresses, phone numbers and email addresses in ten.

Republican officials cannot remove Miller from the ballot themselves. Under Ohio law, a nominee for Congress must withdraw before the 90th day ahead of the general election to create a vacancy; county boards of elections in the district then hold a special election on a date set by the secretary of state, or, if only one candidate files, the secretary certifies that person as the party’s nominee. The 90th day before the Nov. 3 general election is Wednesday, Aug. 5.