House Speaker Mike Johnson says he won't get involved in the abuse allegations against embattled Republican Representative Max Miller — describing them as “domestic events” that happen “all the time.”
“I haven’t spoken to Max about this in the last few days. Of course, I will,” Johnson said in an interview with Politico. “There’s all sorts of domestic events going on with 435 members of Congress all the time, it’s not my business to get engaged in it.”
When pressed about accusations that the Ohio Republican held a gun to the head of ex-wife Emily Moreno and broke their two-year-old daughter's collarbone, Johnson acknowledged the claims were “serious,” Politico reported Wednesday.
Moreno’s father is Republican Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio, who said Sunday that his former son-in-law should drop his re-election bid, resign from Congress and get “serious psychological help.”
"He is a danger to my daughter, and I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter," Senator Moreno wrote on social media. "If there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office, Max Miller fails them."
The remarks led several Republican colleagues to echo the call, with Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas saying: “I trust Bernie so much as a good friend, and his family has such high values” that “to go through with this, it makes me think that they’re telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
President Donald Trump privately told Miller that “things aren’t looking good,” Axios reported Monday. The president also told reporters the same day that the situation involving him was “a very sad thing.”
At Miller’s request, the House Ethics Committee said Tuesday that it's looking into whether the 37-year-old lawmaker “may have engaged in domestic violence and abuse or illegal drug use.” Johnson said that investigation would get to the bottom of the allegations.
“I think Max is taking them seriously. I think our colleagues are,” the speaker said. “But, again, we have to allow this process to play out. It’s just begun.”
Hours after the Ethics Committee announcement, Miller appeared Tuesday on CNN, where he denied any wrongdoing and called the claims against him “politically motivated.”
Miller also said he wouldn't drop his campaign for a third term in the House ahead of Tuesday’s deadline, saying: “I will never back down.”
"I am never going to give up, and what I mean by that is my daughter is going to grow up one day, and she's going to see all of this, and she's not going to see that her father caved to political and social media pressures for something that he never did," he added.
Emily Moreno’s accusations, contained in police reports and court documents, led to the resurfacing of a 2021 Politico report in which unidentified sources alleged that Miller had pushed and slapped then-girlfriend and former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham during an April 2021 domestic dispute, and had also shoved a high school classmate down a flight of stairs when she refused his advances.
Miller, through an attorney, denied those allegations at the time and later sued Grisham for defamation after she wrote about an abusive relationship with an ex-boyfriend, without identifying Miller by name.
They settled out of court, with both sides agreeing not to disparage each other but Grisham sued Miller last month, alleging he violated that deal.
Grisham also filed a motion Monday for a temporary restraining order against Miller to prevent further alleged violations.
During his Tuesday CNN appearance, Miller acknowledged that Trump had called him the day before and told him “it’s going to be a tough race” but didn’t tell him to drop out.
Miller also said that “Speaker Mike Johnson, everyone else — they’re standing behind me.”
Johnson told Politico that he thought that “what Max is suggesting there is that I’ve been intellectually consistent.”
“We don’t take disciplinary action against members for allegations,” the speaker said. “But he’s saying the same things privately to members that he is publicly, that he denies all this.”
Johnson also said that the allegations “don’t look good right now, of course,” adding, “Look, I pine for the days when we don’t have these kinds of disturbances, when we got people who act in accordance with the dignity of their office. “
“But people have domestic disputes,” he said. “It’s part of being flawed humans, as we are, and we have to let those processes play out.”