Ohio Republican Congressman Max Miller allegedly threw boiling water at his wife, held a gun to her head, and is now asking voters to send him back to Washington for another term. He says the allegations are false. His ex-wife testified under oath. His ex-girlfriend wrote a Washington Post op-ed. His response to a New York Times reporter asking about all of this was to call them 'disgusting.'
Two Women, Two Separate Accusations, One Very Busy Congressman
Let's start with what we actually know. Miller's ex-wife, Emily Moreno, testified earlier this year that during their marriage he 'took hot water from a pan he had just cooked eggs in and threw it at me.' That's not a metaphor. That's boiling egg water thrown at a person. The New York Times also reports she accused him of holding a gun to her head.
The pair married in 2022, share a two-year-old daughter, and have been in a legal custody battle since 2024. Moreno is a conservative policy adviser. Her father is Bernie Moreno, Republican U.S. senator for Ohio. Yes, this means a Republican congressman is publicly feuding with a Republican senator over whether that senator's daughter is lying about being abused.
Separately, Miller's former girlfriend Stephanie Grisham, who served as White House press secretary during Trump's first term, has also accused him of abuse. She and Miller dated from 2019 to 2020. In a 2021 Washington Post op-ed she wrote about a relationship that 'turned abusive' and a partner who was 'physical' with her. She didn't name Miller at the time. She later confirmed, according to the Times, that she was talking about him.
His Defense Is... Something
Miller's explanation for the Grisham allegations, delivered to Spectrum News in June, was that her accusation 'came out on the same day as somebody's book launch.' That's it. That's the defense. Someone had a book coming out, therefore: abuse didn't happen.
On the allegations from his ex-wife, Miller told Spectrum News: 'They're false allegations. Our divorce was finalized on December 18 in 2025. No police reports were ever filed.' The divorce date is accurate. The 'no police reports' line is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, given that victims of domestic abuse routinely don't file police reports, a fact that anyone who has spent five minutes studying the issue already knows.
Miller also took to X in May to accuse his ex-wife's father, Senator Bernie Moreno, of funding 'a malicious campaign to ruin my life' and suggested Moreno has 'mental health issues,' adding that 'these antics harm your own grandchild.' The senator's office responded that his priority is 'the safety and well-being of his daughter and granddaughter.' That is a careful, lawyerly non-answer that nevertheless tells you everything you need to know.
The Lawsuit Carousel Nobody Asked For
The legal situation here has more moving parts than a Swiss watch and about as much transparency. Miller originally sued Grisham for defamation after her 2021 op-ed. He then dropped that lawsuit as part of a confidential settlement. Grisham has now filed a new lawsuit against Miller, alleging he violated that confidential settlement through comments he made to Spectrum News in June.
Miller also filed a defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife, Emily Moreno. That lawsuit is the very proceeding in which Moreno testified about the boiling water. So to be clear: Miller sued his ex-wife for defamation, and the resulting testimony included sworn accounts of him throwing scalding water at her. The lawsuits designed to silence these women have instead put their accounts into the public record under oath. That's not legal strategy. That's a catastrophe.
The Race Is Actually Close
Here's the part that should unsettle everyone regardless of where you sit politically. Miller is running for re-election in Ohio's seventh congressional district, and a June survey had him leading his Democratic challenger, Brian Poindexter, by a single point. One point. With all of this in the open.
Poindexter told the New York Times: 'If the allegations prove to be true, Miller should be in jail, not worried about retaining a seat in Congress.' That's a reasonable position for anyone to hold, though Poindexter was careful to include the 'if' qualifier. Miller, for his part, called a Times reporter 'disgusting' when approached for comment on the story.
Giffords, the gun violence prevention group founded by former Representative Gabrielle Giffords, called Wednesday for Miller's immediate resignation. 'Congress is no place for violent abusers who attack their family and hold a gun to their wife's head,' executive director Emma Brown said, according to the Guardian. 'Max Miller needs to resign now, and if he refuses, the House should expel him.'
Where the Republican Party Stands: Nowhere, Obviously
Miller is a Republican member of Congress with a Trump endorsement in his political background, and so far the party's response to credible sworn testimony that he threw boiling water at his wife and held a gun to her head has been: nothing. Radio silence. The sound of colleagues suddenly becoming very busy with other things.
The Guardian reports it reached out to Miller's campaign and office for comment and received no response. The House Republican leadership has not called for his resignation. No censure. No investigation. The institutional response from the party that spent years claiming to care about law and order has been a masterclass in collective amnesia.
The Dingo Take
A man testified against under oath threw boiling water at his wife. The same man's former girlfriend, a former White House press secretary, wrote publicly that a relationship left her physically abused and later confirmed he was the one she was describing. His response to both of these things has been defamation lawsuits, social media attacks on a U.S. senator's mental health, and calling reporters disgusting. He is currently running for Congress. He might win.
The 'no police reports were ever filed' defense deserves to be laughed out of every room it enters. The majority of domestic abuse victims never file police reports. The reasons are documented, well-studied, and obvious to anyone who has read a single thing on the subject. Using that absence as exoneration is not a legal argument. It is a talking point for people who are counting on voters not to think too hard.
What's actually being tested here isn't Max Miller. He's already told you who he is. What's being tested is whether a congressional district in Ohio will look at sworn testimony about scalding water and a gun held to a woman's head and decide that's acceptable collateral damage for keeping a Republican seat. The answer comes in November. Don't look away.
Comments