U.S. Rep. Max Miller’s reelection campaign is a disastrous example of how the pursuit of power can destroy a family and harm an innocent child.
Rumors that have simmered for years have caught fire courtesy of defamation and custody lawsuits and divorce filings, and because Miller is up for reelection in Ohio’s 7th Congressional District that covers southern Cuyahoga County, all of Medina County, the north part of Wayne County and Ashland County.
Miller, who has rejected advice to drop out the race, repeatedly has denied charges that he was abusive during and after his marriage with Emily Moreno, including claims that he threw boiling water on her, shoved her against a wall and pointed a gun at her while she changed their daughter’s diaper.
Amid accusations that he has a hair-trigger temper and a tendency to rough up women, he and his ex-wife are blaming each other for the very public implosion of their marriage which also could blow up Miller’s political career.
The situation has reached the toxicity of a landfill, tainting everyone involved, including Emily’s father, U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, who describes the scandal that has engulfed his family as “pure hell.”
Miller has stated that his ex-wife struggles with mental illness, which may be true, but it’s also right out of the domestic abuser’s playbook.
The problem is she isn’t the first woman to accuse Miller of violence. She’s not even the second.
Miller has been linked to abusive behavior going back to high school, when he allegedly pushed a girl who fell down some stairs after she rebuffed his advances.
Following her 2021 memoir, “I’ll Take Your Questions Now,” Stephanie Grisham, former White House spokeswoman for Melania Trump, identified Miller as the unnamed boyfriend she described as physically and emotionally abusive and a drug user, but said her complaints to the Trumps were ignored.
Earlier this month, Grisham filed a temporary protection order after she said Miller violated their settlement agreement.
Settlement for what?
Is it possible that three women who have never met are all telling the same exact lie over a 10-year span?
Anything is possible.
Or perhaps there’s a pattern here.
For those who argue that it’s a family matter, Miller is on TV these days more than “Law & Order” reruns. He has done a flurry of TV interviews — each one self-sabotaging — and has sent reams of documents to news outlets throughout Ohio protesting his innocence. He recently requested a House ethics investigation that he says will prove it.
Earlier this month, Moreno lobbed an F-bomb at Dr. Anthony Fauci during a Senate hearing; a moment which accomplished nothing more than secondhand embarrassment. Days later, he dropped a second one on a reporter who asked why it took him two years to repudiate his former son-in-law.
We all know fathers who would happily do two years in jail if someone hurt their daughter or grandchild. It required a public shaming for Moreno to do an about-face on Miller. He has since called for Miller’s resignation, adding that he had to send his daughter to a safe location, and accused Miller of once holding his granddaughter’s favorite bedtime toy “hostage.”
Now, every parent has that moment when they wish their kid hadn’t learned to talk. Toddlers in particular have no filters, as in, “Hey, how come that lady gots a moustache?”
There are media reports that Miller’s daughter told her mother, “Daddy kill you” and “Daddy’s house is scary.” Miller counters that the child has also described her mother’s house as “scary.”
Miller has pointed to a seat belt, then his daughter’s day care center as possibilities for his daughter’s injuries. Making matters worse, Miller’s attorney accidentally released a photo online of the little girl taken during an examination.
In other words, this child has become collateral damage.
On Aug. 6, U.S. Sen. Jon Husted urged Miller to resign, calling it the best course of action for his child. But Miller told CNN’s Jake Tapper he won’t drop out because he wants to set an example for his daughter by taking his cue from Trump’s resilience following his “Access Hollywood” audiotape debacle in 2016.
Trump — no stranger to abuse complaints from women — calls Miller, a former White House staffer, “a good person.” He also appears to be whistling past the graveyard based on a leaked phone call in which Trump informed Miller that his reelection prospects look dim.
A 2-year-old, by the way, doesn’t give a rip about lessons in persistence or profiles-in-courage moments, not if she’s missing her blue bunny and thinking that Daddy may hurt Mommy.
Just because you can do a thing doesn’t mean you should. Every parent reading this has sacrificed for their children, including things they’ve never shared with their kids.
Miller needs to stand down from reelection if for no other reason than his daughter’s stability.
With more baggage than an airport, how can he possibly be an effective representative for women and children’s issues now, or really, anyone’s?
But we all know ambition, hubris and political power is one hell of a cocktail drug.
Charita M. Goshay is a Canton Repository staff writer and member of the editorial board. Reach her at 330-580-8313 or charita.goshay@cantonrep.com. On Twitter: @cgoshayREP
This article originally appeared on The Repository: U.S. Rep. Max Miller owes it to his young child to step down | Goshay
Reporting by Charita M. Goshay, Canton Repository / The Repository
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By Charita M. Goshay, Canton Repository | USA TODAY Network
