Moments before he posted a link to hundreds of messages, recordings and images from his divorce, U.S. Rep. Max Miller told a livestream audience why he was doing it.
“This isn’t about defending myself,” the Ohio Republican said. “I’m speaking up as a father, trying to protect our daughter.”
The folder he shared Sunday with his nearly 60,000 followers on X contained an image of that daughter, who is 2 years old, nude, CNN reported Tuesday. The image was publicly available for at least a day before it was taken down.
Miller’s personal attorney, Aaron Minc, has taken responsibility for it. “Unfortunately, I missed the last three pages of a 40+ page document with sensitive content,” Minc said in a statement to CNN. “It was completely unintentional and a mistake. The moment I discovered the issue on Monday morning, I corrected the file immediately.”
Minc said he made multiple passes through the material to strip out sensitive details, including the child’s name. CNN reported that an earlier version of the public file it reviewed included the child’s name dozens of times, along with payment records to medical providers and several images of her.
“I am truly sorry to Congressman Miller, Ms. Moreno, both of their families, and, especially, to their daughter,” Minc said. “I deeply regret the mistake.”
Where the image came from
The photograph was not created for the document release. According to CNN, it was part of a February 2025 exchange between Miller and his then-wife, Emily Moreno, as the two coordinated custody arrangements.
On Feb. 18, 2025, Moreno wrote that she had noticed a large bruise on their daughter while bathing her. Miller asked to see a picture. Moreno sent an image focused on the injury that also showed the child undressed. The injury was a broken collarbone.
That injury triggered the Bay Village police investigation TiffinOhio.net first reported in April. It ended with no charges filed.
The letter
Attorneys for Emily Moreno wrote to Minc on Monday demanding an explanation. In the letter, first circulated publicly by New York Times congressional correspondent Annie Karni and later obtained by CNN, attorney Subodh Chandra wrote that the first version of the folder left the child’s name unredacted and that at least one image “could be considered Child Sexual Abuse Material.”
The letter asks who assembled the folder, whether anyone reviewed the images before publication, who removed them from the second version, and how many people downloaded the material. Chandra’s letter says the post had drawn more than 204,000 views by Monday afternoon.
“We view this matter with the utmost seriousness and hope you and your client do as well,” Moreno’s attorneys wrote.
Minc, who said he is Miller’s personal counsel and is not paid by the campaign, called the decision by Moreno and her lawyers to publicize the error shameful.
Moreno: ‘to say “oops” is grotesque’
U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, Emily Moreno’s father, told reporters Tuesday that the release went beyond the litigation.
“On Sunday, when he went out and did what he did, including releasing photos of my granddaughter completely naked, that now you have hundreds and thousands of psychotic human beings that have that, and to say ‘oops’ is grotesque,” the senator said.
Moreno declined Tuesday to discuss President Donald Trump’s continued support for Miller’s campaign, telling reporters he does not care about the politics. “This is truly the seventh level of hell,” he said. “This has been a horrific experience for my entire family.”
The senator had said nothing publicly about his daughter’s allegations for months. He broke that silence Sunday, hours after Miller’s livestream, saying Miller “should not serve in the House of Representatives.” Moreno represents every Ohio county, including Seneca and Sandusky, until January 2031.
The document release
Miller posted the folder Sunday as part of a 20-minute livestream denying Moreno’s allegations that he threw hot water on her, held a gun to her head and injured their daughter. He has denied all of it, and no criminal charges have been filed against him in the case.
The material included recordings Miller said supported his account, among them audio in which Moreno says she found needles by his bed. Miller denies drug use and offered to be tested.
At one point Sunday, the folder went offline. “Apparently, there are people who don’t want this information out. Strange,” Miller wrote on X. “Don’t worry, Dropbox will be back up momentarily.” Minc dates his discovery of the image and his correction of the file to Monday morning.
Miller asks to be investigated
Miller said Tuesday he will request a House Ethics Committee investigation into himself.
“In light of all the renewed interest in my family affairs I am going to file my own paperwork for an ethics investigation into myself to clear my name from these horrific attacks on myself and family,” he wrote. “I have absolutely nothing to hide. We will be providing the committee all necessary documents needed for a detail examination. The accusations continue to change, but my facts stay the same. I am looking forward to my colleagues reading everything for themselves.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson has pointed to the ethics process before. In July, Johnson said the claims against Miller remained allegations and that the committee handles such matters through a process, Roll Call reported. Most House Republicans have avoided the subject entirely.
The deadline
All of it lands against a ballot clock. According to the Ohio secretary of state’s office, if Miller withdrew before the close of business Tuesday, a special primary would be held to fill the Republican nomination in the 7th District. If he withdraws after that, party leaders have a narrow window; the deadline to replace him on the ballot is Aug. 10, and two days’ notice is required before party officials could meet to pick a candidate.
Miller told CNN by text Tuesday morning that Trump called him Monday and “never asked me to drop out.” Asked whether he still plans to run, Miller said “nothing changed.” Trump told reporters Monday that he would “let the families figure that out.”
Miller faces Democrat Brian Poindexter, a union ironworker, in November. The Cook Political Report moved the district from Solid Republican to Likely Republican on June 18.
A widening set of cases
The document release is one front among several. Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham filed for a temporary restraining order against Miller on Monday, her attorney Mark S. Zaid announced. Grisham, who dated Miller in 2019 and 2020, sued him last month over an alleged breach of the non-disparagement agreement that ended his 2021 defamation suit against her. “The settlement included certain promises that Congressman Miller made to our client Stephanie Grisham, and those promises were broken,” her lawyer Marc Dann said.
Emily Moreno separately asked a judge on July 31 to bar Miller from contacting her attorneys, alleging he put his hands on one of them at a courthouse hearing. Miller’s defamation suit against Moreno remains pending, as does her motion to dismiss it under Ohio’s anti-SLAPP law. He was accused in June of violating a mutual restraining order in the case.
