Republican Rep. Max Miller of Ohio filed a defamation lawsuit in Cleveland against his ex-wife Emily Moreno, her attorney Andrew Zashin, and Zashin's law firm, alleging they waged a coordinated campaign to paint him as an abusive husband and father by feeding false information to national media outlets.
The complaint, reported by the Associated Press, seeks compensatory damages in excess of $25,000, punitive damages, and attorney's fees. It marks the sharpest legal escalation yet in a divorce fight that has spilled from family court into tabloid headlines, and now threatens to shadow Miller's reelection bid in Ohio's 7th Congressional District this fall.
Miller, a two-term congressman and former White House aide during President Donald Trump's first term, married Emily Moreno in 2022. They had a daughter in 2023. He filed for divorce in August 2024, while Moreno's father, Sen. Bernie Moreno, was making a successful Trump-backed run for the U.S. Senate. The divorce was finalized last June.
The lawsuit contends that Moreno, Zashin, and his firm spread knowingly false information to The Daily Mail and the New York Post, outlets the complaint describes as having "circulation measured in the tens of millions of print and online readership." The alleged falsehoods portrayed Miller as "a violent and abusive husband and father," language the complaint quotes directly from the accusations leveled against him.
Miller's legal team argues the media campaign inflicted "considerable reputational and financial harm" on the congressman, damaging his standing with "his political supporters and donors, the media, and the general public." The complaint further contends the damage undermines his chances of winning reelection.
The Washington Examiner reported that Miller's complaint also named TMZ and the Daily Beast among the outlets to which Moreno and her legal team allegedly made false statements. In the filing, Miller alleged Moreno and her lawyers acted for the "strategic purpose of seeking their '15 minutes of fame'... at the expense of destroying Plaintiff's personal and professional reputation."
One specific accusation Miller disputes: that he threw boiling water at Moreno. The Daily Mail published images of Moreno's alleged injuries in connection with that claim. Miller has denied it.
Emily Moreno's spokesperson, Stefan Mychajliw, responded with a statement that framed the lawsuit as an attempt to intimidate her into silence. He pointed to a prior defamation case Miller brought, and later dropped, against former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, who had alleged in a 2021 book and Washington Post op-ed that a former White House staffer later identified as Miller physically abused her while they were dating.
Mychajliw told reporters:
"Mr. Miller is upset because he's tried to silence Emily Moreno the same way he silenced Stephanie Grisham, and Emily won't let him."
He added that Miller was "running the same playbook against a woman with photographs of her bruises and burns." The New York Post reported that Moreno's side claims to have photos, handwritten evidence, and what they describe as inconsistencies in Miller's court filings supporting her account.
Zashin, the attorney also named in the suit, declined to comment.
The Grisham lawsuit hangs over this case like an uncomfortable precedent. Miller sued Grisham for defamation after her 2021 allegations surfaced during his first congressional run. But he voluntarily dismissed that suit with prejudice in August 2023, just before it was set to go to trial. A dismissal with prejudice means the claim cannot be refiled.
Mychajliw seized on that history, telling the Post plainly: "Mr. Miller will not silence Ms. Moreno." The implication is clear enough, that Miller's legal strategy is to threaten defamation action, extract whatever tactical advantage the filing provides, and then walk away before the claims are tested in open court.
Whether that characterization is fair remains to be seen. The Grisham case and the Moreno case involve different accusers, different alleged facts, and different legal postures. But the pattern gives Moreno's team a ready-made narrative, and they are plainly using it. Congressional scandals involving personal conduct have drawn increasing scrutiny on Capitol Hill in recent months, and voters are paying attention.
The defamation suit is only the latest chapter in a divorce and custody fight that has grown steadily more acrimonious. Miller sought a restraining order against Moreno during the proceedings. He also subpoenaed Sen. Bernie Moreno, Emily's father and a sitting U.S. senator, to testify in the custody dispute.
Miller's spokesperson provided documentation showing that the Cuyahoga County Division of Children and Family Services investigated several allegations that Miller had abused his daughter and deemed them unsubstantiated. That finding is significant, though it speaks only to the child-abuse claims, not to the separate allegations of spousal abuse that form the core of the public dispute.
The congressman's team framed the lawsuit as a necessary step. A Miller spokesman stated:
"Congressman Miller is seeking to hold those responsible accountable and to obtain damages for the significant personal, professional, and political harm that he has suffered."
Efforts to expose misconduct records involving members of Congress have gained momentum in recent sessions, raising the stakes for any lawmaker whose personal life becomes public.
Miller is up for reelection this fall. Democrat Brian Poindexter, a five-term local councilman and union ironworker, is looking to flip Ohio's 7th Congressional District in November. The complaint itself acknowledges the political stakes, arguing that the reputational damage from Moreno's accusations directly threatens Miller's electoral prospects.
That admission cuts two ways. It underscores the seriousness with which Miller views the allegations. But it also invites the question of whether the lawsuit is primarily a legal remedy or a political one, designed less to win in court than to reframe the narrative before voters head to the polls.
Ethics and conduct controversies have dogged members of both parties in recent years. The House Oversight Committee's referral of financial concerns involving Rep. Ilhan Omar to an ethics panel is just one example of how personal and professional conduct questions can follow a lawmaker through an election cycle.
Miller called the boiling-water allegation false and dishonest. Moreno's camp says it has the photographs. The complaint alleges a deliberate media strategy. The defense says the lawsuit is an intimidation tactic. Neither side's version has been tested under oath in this case.
What is clear: a sitting congressman's messy divorce is now a full-blown legal and political fight, with tabloid coverage, dueling spokespeople, a senator subpoenaed to testify, and a November election bearing down. Personal scandals involving elected officials, from affair allegations forcing a state supreme court justice to resign to congressional text-message controversies, have a way of consuming everything around them.
Several important questions remain. The exact court where the defamation complaint was filed has not been identified in available reporting. No case number or docket entry has been disclosed. The specific statements Miller alleges are defamatory, beyond the broad accusation of being "a violent and abusive husband and father", have not been detailed publicly. And the terms of the restraining-order request and the subpoena to Sen. Moreno remain unclear.
The Cuyahoga County investigation found the child-abuse allegations unsubstantiated, but the documentation Miller's team provided has not been independently reviewed in the reporting. Moreno's team insists it has photographic and written evidence. Neither side's evidence has been subjected to cross-examination.
Courts exist to sort out exactly these disputes. The question for voters in Ohio's 7th District is whether they will wait for that process, or render their own verdict in November.
When a congressman's divorce becomes a defamation case, and the defamation case becomes a campaign issue, the only people guaranteed to lose are the ones who never asked to be part of it.