The House Ethics Committee announced an investigation into Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) on Tuesday as the drama surrounding his ongoing divorce and custody battle with Sen. Bernie Moreno’s (R-OH) daughter heats up with new allegations of publishing child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
Moreno responded publicly to Miller for the second time this week after Miller appeared to inadvertently disseminate a Dropbox folder containing private images of the two-year-old daughter he shares with the senator’s daughter, Emily Moreno.
In a Monday letter to Miller’s attorney, Emily’s legal team accused the congressman of sharing the folder in conjunction with a “video rant” that Miller posted to X defending himself from allegations of domestic violence and abuse from his ex-wife:
“Yesterday, you enabled your client, Congressman Max Miller, to share and disseminate to the public an electronic Dropbox folder of materials,” Chandra Law Firm wrote to Miller’s lawyer, Aaron Minc. “This was in conjunction with a video rant about our client, Emily Moreno, that Miller posted on X.”
“The first time Miller shared the folder, it contained private images of Miller and Ms. Moreno’s daughter and left her name unredacted,” Emily’s attorneys continued. “At least one of those images could be considered Child Sexual Abuse Material (CAM) because the daughter’s genitals appear to be visible.”
According to Chandra Law Firm, the post that Miller uploaded with a link to that folder containing a nude image of his daughter garnered over 204,000 views from the time it was put up on Sunday until the following afternoon.
While Miller has since removed the content from that original folder, he re-uploaded another Dropbox link that does not appear to contain uncensored photos of his daughter, but information to defend himself from the accusations from Emily.
In their letter to Minc, Emily’s lawyers demanded answers to the following questions:
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Whose idea was it to share this intimate image of the child?
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Why did your firm share it?
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Did you or your firm vet the images before sharing them? Did anyone? Who?
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Who removed the images from the second folder and why? Was it because someone realized that it was ill-advised (and in the case of the potential CSAM image, illegal) to share these images with the world?
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How many people accessed and downloaded the intimate image, and each of the other images of the child, including one in which her chest is exposed?
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Who accessed and downloaded the image?
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What are you going to do about this?
“We view this matter with the utmost seriousness and hope you and your client do as well,” Emily’s attorneys added in their conclusion. “Please respond by the close of business on August 5, 2026. Honest responses should not take long.”
Minc shot back at New York Times correspondent Annie Karni for sharing the letter regarding his client on X, writing, “crazy that you didn’t even attempt to contact me (like others already have) and even attempt to ask me for a comment about such a sensitive topic before publishing this.”
“Top-notch reporting there, chief,” Miller’s attorney added in his reply.
Despite his salty response, Minc admitted in a statement to Punchbowl News missed “the last three pages of a 40+ page document with sensitive content” when redacting the Dropbox folder before allowing Miller to post it on his page.
“It was completely unintentional and a mistake,” the congressman’s attorney explained. “The moment I discovered the issue on Monday morning, I corrected the file immediately.”
Minc went on to clarify that sharing the sensitive content was “solely” his fault, offering an apology to both the Moreno and Miller families for the mishap before claiming that it is “egregious and shameful” that Emily and her legal team have decided to turn the mistake into a “media spectacle.”
In the video uploaded along with the original Dropbox folder on Sunday, Miller dismissed his ex-wife’s allegations of abuse, arguing that she was the one who had mental health issues.
“Just want to be clear: no court, no agency has ever substantiated any allegation of abuse against me. No criminal charge has ever been filed against me,” Miller said in the video. “Every single one of these allegations were already investigated, and I cooperated fully every single time because I had nothing to hide and I have nothing to hide now.”
After seeing Miller’s video, Moreno took to X to make his first statement on the matter, calling on Miller to resign from Congress:
“As a father and husband, I can tell you the last two years have been pure hell for my wife Bridget, our daughter Emily, me, and our entire family in the aftermath of Emily’s divorce,” the senator wrote. “It has been horrific to watch this play out in full public view, all while knowing an innocent two-year-old girl is caught in the middle.”
Moreno went on to say that he hoped to keep the matter private but was forced to go public due to Miller’s “increasingly erratic and dangerous behavior.”
“As he has admitted privately, Max Miller needs serious psychological help,” Moreno continued. “He is a danger to my daughter, and I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter.”
On Monday morning, Miller returned to social media to announce that he is filing his own paperwork for a House Ethics Committee investigation into himself “to clear my name from these horrific attacks on myself and family.”
“I have absolutely nothing to hide,” Miller wrote on X. “We will be providing the committee all necessary documents needed for a detail[ed] examination. The accusations continue to change, but my facts stay the same. I am looking forward to my colleagues reading everything for themselves.”
A press release from the House Ethics Committee granted Miller’s wish shortly thereafter, announcing that the panel would be “reviewing allegations” that the congressman “may have engaged in domestic violence and abuse or illegal drug use in violation of the Code of Official Conduct or any other applicable standard of conduct.”
Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, Sen. Moreno was speaking to TMZ reporters about the drama surrounding his former son-in-law, including his two-year-old granddaughter being exposed online:
Reiterating his previous statement that Miller is unfit to serve in Congress, the senator went on to refer to his ex-son-in-law’s defensive claims as the “ramblings of a madman.”
When asked what he thought about Miller telling President Donald Trump that he could still win in the upcoming midterm elections, Moreno replied that he is more concerned with his daughter “living in constant fear” than caring about politics.
“I don’t care about the politics of this. I hope that you guys understand — maybe I hope you never have to understand what my daughter’s been through, what my daughter is going through, what my wife is going through, my two boys and my other daughter are going through,” Moreno said. “This is truly the seventh level of hell.”
Speaking to why his family has not been public with the allegations against Miller until recently, the senator explained that his daughter initially wanted to keep it private.
“This has been a horrific experience for my entire family. My daughter specifically did not want this to be out in the public. That’s why she asked me to lower the temperature,” Moreno said. “You got to remember, when you don’t have kids and you get divorced, you can just say farewell. You never have to see each other again. But when you have a child, you have to co-parent with that individual for the rest of your life.”
He went on to state that Emily “lives in constant fear” of Miller, and blamed him for releasing private photos of his granddaughter.
“You can’t fathom what that makes me feel like when the dad’s number one job is to protect your kids, and to have this whole thing out in the public — like this is not what I wanted to do,” Moreno stated. “It’s not what my daughter wanted to do. But on Sunday, when he went out and did what he did, including releasing photos of my granddaughter completely naked … Now you have hundreds of thousands of psychotic human beings that have that, and to say ‘oops’ is grotesque.”
“My personal opinion is that this is a felony, and that every single human being that touched that photo and transmitted it electronically should go to jail because it is illegal to do that,” the senator continued. “This has been brutal beyond comprehension, and if there’s any minimum standard for being an elected official, as I said, he fails to meet that minimum basic standard. I don’t care about the politics at all.”
In his conversation with reporters, Moreno also revealed that he has been the one arranging custody switches for his granddaughter, in order to spare his daughter from interacting with Miller.
During the last switch, which was held at the Bayville Police Department, Moreno claimed that the congressman held his granddaughter’s favorite stuffed animal hostage.
“I had to go pick [my granddaughter] up because I don’t want my daughter interacting with this man. So I meet him at the Bay Village Police Station because that’s the place that we have to go to meet because I don’t know what this guy’s capable of,” Moreno explained.
“She has a little blue bunny that she sleeps with. Max would not hand over the little blue bunny; literally held it hostage for 48 hours,” the senator claimed. “This girl is crying at night because she can’t sleep without her little blue bunny. His answer was, ‘I’m just not going to give it to you.’”
After the little girl spent the weekend without her toy bunny, Moreno said it was “finally” returned.
“This is the level of total and complete depravity. Do I want all this in public? No. Do you have any idea what it’s like to go through physical abuse and then mental abuse and then to relive it over and over and over again? That’s what my daughter has tried to avoid. She hasn’t made a single solitary public statement. Max feels like he needs to go on a publicity tour, which I just don’t understand.”
Moreno concluded his statement to reporters by emphasizing how difficult the drama and alleged criminal acts will be to explain to his granddaughter when she is older.
“Remember, at the end of the day, that little two-year-old is going to be an adult — and unlike when I was a kid […] she’s going to have high-definition videos. She’s going to have news stories. She’s going to have everything out there,” Moreno said. “She’s going to read that as an adult, going, ‘What the heck happened? And why is my life the subject of so much publicity?’”
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
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