Is Rep. Max Miller threatening to out Sen. Bernie Moreno for having sex with men?
Moreno won’t call for the resignation of Miller, his son-in-law, accused by Moreno’s daughter of domestic abuse. Is it MAGA loyalty, or is it Miller’s threat to uncover something about the senator?
Yesterday, Ohio’s MAGA Sen. Bernie Moreno made quite a show of attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci in a Senate hearing at which Republicans pushed conspiracies and smeared Fauci, who they accuse of all manner of idiotic things regarding the Covid pandemic.
Before we get too far, let me first remind you that Moreno, in 2024, was Trump’s choice in the GOP primary, and suddenly found himself at the center of a gay sex scandal, as the Associated Press linked him to an online male-for-male sex ad, in a story that rocked the GOP. Let me also point out that he’d previously been pro-LGBTQ but completely reversed course as he became an ambitious MAGA warrior.
More on that further down. But let’s get back to yesterday.
Social media exploded with comments, pointing out that Moreno got more fired up about Fauci than he’s certainly been about the allegations from his own daughter, GOP operative Emily Moreno, who has accused her ex-husband, Ohio MAGA Rep. Max Miller, of physical abuse of both her and the couple’s 2-year-old daughter. Abby Vesoulis at Mother Jones, sho I had on my SiriusXM program yesterday, did in-depth reporting on the case, which is well worth a read.
Miller has a string of abuse allegations in his past, including from Trump’s former press secretary Stephanie Grisham, who was his girlfriend.
Not shockingly, Miller worked as a senior White House aide for Donald Trump in his first term and has been lauded by Trump, who endorsed him for his run for Congress in 2022. Miller and Moreno married a few months before the election at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, in a MAGA fairy-tale wedding. But they divorced two years later amid the allegations of abuse.
Bernie Moreno has remained grotesquely silent about the allegations of domestic abuse against his own daughter and granddaughter.
Emily Moreno has accused Miller of scalding her chest and stomach by throwing boiling water at her. She said he held a gun to her head, shoved her against a wall and beat her, and fractured their daughter’s collarbone. Max Miller has demeaned her by calling her mentally ill and accusing her of being a liar, denying all, and filing a defamation suit against her in May.
Yesterday, as Bernie Moreno was tearing into Fauci, The New York Times reported all that Moreno could muster as a response regarding his daughter’s accusations of having a gun put to her head and being beaten up, all of it coming from his spokesperson, Reagan McCarthy:
“Senator Moreno’s top priority is the safety and well-being of his daughter and granddaughter.” The spokeswoman added: “While he will not litigate these matters in the media or respond to baseless public attacks, he will do whatever it takes to ensure a just outcome for his family.”
Seriously, you’re not believing your own daughter, not calling on this guy to resign, as Democrats rightly did regarding credible sexual assault allegations against Graham Platner, Eric Swalwell and others?
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Commentators have attributed this to the typical cowardly MAGA loyalty to the sex-offender-in chief, Donald Trump, and the GOP. Republicans are looking at big election losses in the mid-terms and the possible loss of Miller’s seat. According to the Times, the White House has seen “alarming” polling on the race, in which Democrat Brian Poindexter could flip a seat in a district Trump won by double digits.
I wouldn’t dismiss Moreno’s cultish devotion to MAGA even over his own daughter’s welfare. But there appears to be another factor which may be even greater regarding an explanation for his inaction.
According to the report in Mother Jones, court filings include an exhibit documenting a threat Miller made to Bernie Moreno in a text message:
“I’m sick of this, you know I never hurt our daughter. Take this however you want, everyone is going to get to know you better than your wife does,” Miller wrote to Bernie Moreno, according to an exhibit referenced in Emily Moreno’s motion for a restraining order. “Enjoy the ride brother, I wouldn’t have to do this if you could keep your lying daughter under control.”
That’s where the Associated Press bombshell story from 2024, linking Moreno to a gay sex ad on Adult Friend Finder, a story I reported on here as well, takes on relevance. From the AP:
There’s mounting anxiety inside the GOP that Bernie Moreno may emerge with the nomination. After vaulting into the top tier of contenders with a coveted endorsement from Donald Trump, Moreno — who has shifted from a public supporter of LGBTQ rights to a hardline opponent — is confronting questions about the existence of a 2008 profile seeking “Men for 1-on-1 sex” on a casual sexual encounters website called Adult Friend Finder.
“Hi, looking for young guys to have fun with while traveling,” reads a caption on a photo-less profile under the username “nardo19672,” according to an Associated Press review of records made public through a massive and well-publicized data breach of the website. Records also show the profile was last accessed about six hours after it was created.
The AP review confirmed that someone with access to Moreno’s email account created the profile, though the AP could not definitively confirm whether it was created by Moreno himself…
As the AP reported, the GOP was frantic that this could bring Moreno down should he get the nomination. You can only imagine the late-night strategizing and the Moreno campaign in crisis. Over a couples of days, the Moreno campaign came up with a ridiculous explanation, which nonetheless seemed to tamp down the story:
On Thursday evening, two days after the AP first asked Moreno’s campaign about the account, the candidate’s lawyer said a former intern created the account as a prank. The lawyer provided a statement from the intern, Dan Ricci, who said he created the account as “part of a juvenile prank.”
This was highly implausible. As I wrote at the time:
Ricci claims it was an “aborted prank that I pulled on my friend, and former boss, Bernie Moreno, nearly two decades ago.”
But what was the prank? How does it work? And wouldn’t the profile have been more elaborate and exaggerated if it were a prank? Why a simple solicitation for sex? And why would an intern prank their boss like this—it’s not a “prank,” after all, it’s sexual harassment—in a way that would surely get him fired, but instead he’s now a friend and campaign donor?
The geolocation data for the ad shows it was created in Fort Lauderdale—not Ohio, where Moreno’s business was located and where the intern would conceivably be working.
Fort Lauderdale is where Moreno’s parents live, a place he would conceivably have visited.
Gay men—and men who meet other men online for sex—weren’t buying it for a minute. And now we learn that Max Miller threatened to reveal something about Bernie Moreno—in a text to him—that would allow people to “get to know you better than your wife does” after Emily Moreno accused Miller, per court filings, of abuse against her and their daughter.
Perhaps Miller was simply jumping off of the AP story and making empty threats. But it’s also possible that he knows something about the senator who used to be a big supporter of LGBTQ rights, a car dealership owner who contributed to the cause, promoted marriage equality and defended his own gay son in years past.
That was all before Moreno became MAGA and threw his son under the bus, shifting all his positions on LGBTQ rights. And now he’s curiously—and revoltingly—thrown his daughter under that same bus, after the man she’s accused of assaulting her has threatened to reveal details about the Ohio senator.
My husband worked at a car dealership owned by Bernie Moreno. Moreno would occasionally visit that dealership, flying in on a private jet to a regional airport that was further from the dealership than the major international airport was. Nothing second class for this Primadonna. If a chauffeur driving the most expensive car on the lot was not waiting on the tarmac when Bernie landed, there was hell to pay.
During the time that Bernie was on-site at the dealership, my husband's gaydar was on high alert. And not the "this guy's kinda hot" reading. Instead it was the creepy predator type of reading that sent shivers down his spine. He never interacted with Bernie directly, thankfully, but nothing about Bernie's private life would surprise me.
As the stomach turns...you can't make this shit up. As I've always said. The ones who protest the loudest are usually guilty. These people are generally the scum of the earth and Moreno will find out that capitulating to tRump will inevitably end up in disaster. I can't believe that ANYONE would ever vote for any of them (hypocrisy is ALWAYS their MO). Repugnicans need to have their heads examined. The rout they deserve will be coming in a few months, fingers crossed!