Max Miller has been accused of domestic abuse by his ex-wife, who says he pushed her into a wall, threw hot water on her and held a gun to her head. He denies it. Now, a week before the election, he is airing a TV ad that tells Ohio voters the matter is settled.
"Despite relentless press and investigations," Miller says in the ad, "every allegation against me was proven false."
That isn't true. cleveland.com fact-checked the ad on October 26 and counted two lies in it. The biggest is the one at its center: "Neither cleveland.com's fact-check nor any publicly reported investigative or judicial finding has proven that these allegations are false."
He's citing a fact-check that says no such thing
To prove he's been cleared, Miller's ad points to a cleveland.com fact-check. That earlier fact-check looked at an ad from his Democratic opponent, Brian Poindexter, and found that Poindexter's ad had presented the allegations against Miller as proven facts when they aren't.
That is a finding that the allegations are unproven. It is not a finding that they're false. Miller's ad turns one into the other. In the newspaper's words, he "is now misrepresenting that finding as proof that the allegations were false. Our fact-check had established no such thing."
Here is what the record actually shows, according to cleveland.com:
- His ex-wife, Emily Moreno — the daughter of Ohio Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno — accused him of pushing her into a wall, throwing hot water on her and holding a gun to her head.
- She also raised concerns about their daughter's fractured collarbone and suspicious bruising. Investigators could not determine who caused the child's injuries, and prosecutors declined to file charges for lack of evidence.
- A former girlfriend accused him of physical abuse in 2021 and sought a restraining order against him earlier this year.
- The House Ethics Committee is reviewing allegations that Miller may have engaged in domestic violence and abuse or illegal drug use.
"Could not determine" and "declined to file charges for lack of evidence" are not "proven false." We laid out the 2,000 pages of records behind the child abuse investigation in July. The investigation into the collarbone was ruled unsubstantiated. That is not the same thing as false.
Congress hasn't finished its investigation
The most obvious problem with "every allegation against me was proven false" is that one of the "investigations" his ad mentions is still going on.
In August, Miller asked the House Ethics Committee to investigate him, saying he had nothing to hide. The committee opened an investigation the same day — into domestic violence and illegal drug use. It has not announced any finding. A probe that hasn't reached a conclusion cannot have proven anything false.
The 'my family's heartbreak' line
The ad's other lie, according to cleveland.com, is its opening: "For two years, my family's heartbreak has been dragged onto your TV because, well, that's politics."
The fact-check notes that opponents have used the allegations in ads, but that Miller "has also repeatedly brought attention to the controversy himself." He filed defamation lawsuits against both his ex-wife and his ex-girlfriend. And when he released investigative records this year to try to clear his name, he exposed a sensitive photograph of his own daughter. His ex-wife sued over that too. We covered that lawsuit when it was filed: according to the suit, a nude photo of their 2-year-old was in the folder he posted on X.
A candidate who posted his own custody records online can't blame politics alone for putting his family's private life in public.
Adding it up
Max Miller's TV ad claims "every allegation against me was proven false" and cites a cleveland.com fact-check as proof. The paper says that fact-check found only that the allegations are unproven. No investigation or court has proven them false: prosecutors declined to file charges for lack of evidence, investigators could not determine who injured his daughter, and the House Ethics Committee's investigation into domestic violence and drug use is still open.
