For years, Max Miller told a tidy version of a bad night: back in 2011, he crashed his car, but he'd only "had a few beers" and was "under the legal limit." Newly surfaced court records tell a different story — one involving ecstasy and a prescription sedative.

What the records show

According to The Daily Beast, court documents — obtained by Mother Jones and published July 20, 2026 — show that when Miller crashed into a light pole in 2011, he had MDMA (ecstasy) and Klonopin in his system. Not just alcohol.

That flatly contradicts the story Miller has told publicly. After Donald Trump endorsed him in 2021, Miller said that during the 2011 incident he "had consumed a few beers and was under the legal limit." The toxicology in the court filings shows controlled substances well beyond a couple of beers.

In other words: the reassuring line Miller fed voters when he entered politics appears to have been false.

Why it matters

A decade-old car crash might not be disqualifying on its own. People make mistakes when they're young. But this isn't really a story about 2011 — it's a story about 2021 and beyond, when a candidate for Congress looked the public in the eye and shaved the truth to make himself look better.

If Miller downplayed drug use behind the wheel to clean up his image, it goes directly to whether you can trust what he says now. And for Max Miller, that's not an isolated question.

A pattern of "take my word for it"

Miller has repeatedly asked the public to believe his account over the evidence — and the evidence keeps coming up short:

• In June 2025, Miller claimed a driver hurled antisemitic threats at him in a road-rage incident on an Ohio highway. Dashcam footage and Tesla driving data contradicted key parts of his account. The other driver pleaded guilty only to misdemeanor charges — not the serious ones Miller alleged — and is now suing him for defamation.
• He is currently fighting two separate court battles over domestic-violence allegations — one from his ex-wife, one from his ex-girlfriend. He denies both and has sued his accusers.
• He has a personal record of charges between 2007 and 2011, including assault and disorderly conduct.

Each time, the playbook is the same: deny, minimize, and dare people to prove otherwise. The 2011 toxicology records are one more instance where the paper trail doesn't match the story he told.

The bottom line

Voters can decide how much a 15-year-old crash matters. What they shouldn't have to accept is being lied to about it. Max Miller told Ohio he'd "had a few beers." The court records say ecstasy and Klonopin. When a politician's convenient version keeps getting contradicted by the documents, that's not bad luck — it's a habit.

The allegations in Miller's ongoing lawsuits are claims he denies and has not been criminally charged over; the 2011 toxicology findings come from court records reported by Mother Jones and The Daily Beast.

Source

This post is based on reporting from The Daily Beast, drawing on court documents obtained by Mother Jones.