2026-08-11T20:33:20.415Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/11/politics/max-miller-former-classmates-invs
丹·科恩曾和一位童年玩伴同桌而坐，后者从小就一直和他作对，两人小时候还一起打过棒球。
这位同学有件心事想要倾诉。
“当时他刚戒酒不久，正为曾经对我刻薄而道歉，”科恩回忆起2011年左右的那次对话。
科恩说，当时他“深受触动”，因为他认为眼前的这名男子已经改邪归正。
而现在，他不再这么确定了。
科恩说，这位昔日同学正是马克斯·米勒——这位身陷困境的俄亥俄州共和党众议员，其连任竞选一直被前妻提出的家庭暴力和情绪失控指控所困扰。
米勒的前妻艾米莉·莫雷诺的指控包括，他曾用枪指着她的头，还朝她泼热水。莫雷诺的律师同时也向法院申请针对米勒的限制令，在本月早些时候的一份文件中，该律师称米勒在法庭外对他进行了人身骚扰，并对他未婚妻的外貌发表了贬损言论。
在上周接受美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）记者杰克·塔珀的激烈采访时，米勒否认了所有指控，并指责他的前妻——俄亥俄州共和党参议员伯尼·莫雷诺的女儿——出于政治目的编造指控。
现年37岁的米勒拒绝了退出国会竞选的呼吁，反而要求众议院道德委员会对其所谓的行为展开调查，称该调查还自己清白。该委员会已于上周启动调查。米勒未回应就本文置评的请求。
CNN对米勒过往行为的调查包括审查公开记录以及采访六余名前同学和熟人，结果显示，米勒无论在青年时期还是成年后，都曾爆发过冲动行为，他的激进举动和侮辱性言论常令同伴感到不适，有时甚至是在醉酒状态下。
“当时看起来他确实好转了一阵子——至少从我了解的情况来看是这样，”科恩谈到约15年前米勒的道歉时说。
“我现在对他的看法显然不一样了。”
马克斯·伦纳德·米勒出生在俄亥俄州东北部一个有着悠久历史的富裕家庭。他的祖父塞缪尔是知名房地产开发商，因其广泛的慈善事业广受赞誉，其中包括资助大屠杀教育和纪念活动的慈善机构。
米勒的父母打理着祖父留下的遗产，管理着克利夫兰地区的多家慈善机构。与米勒和他的弟弟杰克一起长大的朋友们记得，当时的安息日晚餐氛围活跃，父母也十分热心——记得米勒的父母会去看体育比赛，在看台上为他们加油助威。
“那是个非常欢迎客人的家，”科恩说，他和米勒在棒球队里打同一个位置：捕手，两人曾是对手。
熟悉的人都说，虽然米勒的弟弟杰克友好又和善，但马克斯的口碑却截然不同。同学们告诉CNN，尽管他有时也会很有魅力，但他往往爱与人对峙。
“他这个人，一对一相处和在群体里完全不一样，”科恩说。“当他和你单独相处时，他会很讨人喜欢，也很坦诚，会放下戒备。”
从小就认识米勒的里弗·麦克威廉姆斯将他描述为“脾气暴躁”。他说，作为一名高中运动员，米勒会像其他青少年球员一样发脾气——比如在一次糟糕的击球后把头盔摔在地上。但在赛场之外，麦克威廉姆斯说，“如果你在派对上碰到他，而他喝多了，他会很快挑起事端、引发打斗……他就是那样的孩子。”
另一位不愿透露姓名的前棒球队队友因担心遭到报复告诉CNN，甚至有些家长都“被米勒吓住了”。“这既有家庭和金钱方面的因素，也和他的性格以及火爆脾气有关。”
另一位同学布莱尔·库里特说，她记得米勒行事激进且带有性别歧视。“我真不觉得他和任何女性是朋友。他好斗……那时候绝对是个厌恶女性的人，”她告诉CNN。
另一位同样因害怕报复而要求匿名的前女同学告诉CNN，米勒脾气很差。她解释说，高中时的他“不是个温和的人”，“作为女性，你不会想和他走得太近”。几名前棒球队队友也告诉CNN，他们曾目睹米勒吹嘘自己的性经历，还会用外貌——尤其是体重——来嘲讽女孩和女性。
在米勒的前同学中广泛流传的一个故事，发生在2006年春季左右的一场派对上，一名十几岁的女孩指控米勒在她拒绝他的示好后将她推下楼梯。
麦克威廉姆斯告诉CNN，派对是在米勒父母家举办的，他至今仍清晰记得那个女孩的痛苦状态。他说自己没有目睹事件经过，但事件发生后他立刻遇到了那个女孩。她“哭得歇斯底里”，他说。“我清楚地记得陪她沿着街道走，安慰她，确认她是否安好，看看她是否需要医疗救助之类的。”
《政客》杂志2021年率先报道了这起事件。这名女子拒绝接受CNN的采访，但曾在给《Mother Jones》记者的短信中称，这起事件“是我人生中最痛苦的夜晚之一”。
多年来，当记者就此提问时，米勒一再否认该事件发生过。
库里特还记得他们十几岁时的另一场派对，当时米勒让她感到不适。当时她和朋友正在讨论大学计划，马克斯“说他要参军，这样就能‘射杀一些阿拉伯人’”。
“我记得这件事，因为它真的让我很不安，”她说。“这完全违背了沙克海茨的价值观”——这是指该社区以自由派避风港著称的名声。
法院和警方记录显示，年轻时期的米勒多次陷入麻烦，这些事件往往涉及酒精、毒品或暴力。
记录显示，2007年，他被指控“行为不检/醉酒”和“阻碍公务”。这些文件被沙克海茨市法院封存，但案件的公开案卷显示，他以“不抗辩”的认罪方式参与了针对初犯者的项目，随后指控被撤销。
率先报道此案的《华盛顿邮报》披露，米勒因涉嫌从背后击打一名男子头部后逃离警方而被捕。
次年夏天，米勒因未成年饮酒被指控。他在该案中做了不抗辩认罪，相关文件也被法院封存。
尽管米勒没有回应CNN就这些指控提出的具体问询，但当《邮报》当时联系他时，他说：“每个人在成长过程中都会犯错……过去的我并不是现在的我。”
几年后的2010年，米勒和一群人在克利夫兰高地繁华的考文垂街区聚会时，在一家水烟吧发生争执，最终导致他在凌晨2点左右打碎了一扇窗户。
CNN获取的警方报告描述米勒“左手手腕大量出血”，称他被送往医院。他因犯有刑事恶作剧罪（轻罪）收到传票。
大约9个月后，米勒在俄亥俄州牛津市的迈阿密大学再次与警方发生冲突。这次，他因驾驶吉普车撞上路灯杆而被指控酒后驾车。根据CNN审查的警方记录，次日清晨人们发现他“眼睛充血，有酒精气味，前额有擦伤”。尽管他的血液酒精检测结果低于法定上限，但后续实验室检测显示，米勒的血液中含有MDMA和氯硝西泮等毒品成分。
这起事件似乎是米勒的转折点。大约在这个时候，他为了戒酒，向他的老棒球队友科恩道了歉。
另外两名消息人士告诉CNN，他们确认米勒当时正积极接受康复治疗，似乎正走上正轨。
2013年从克利夫兰州立大学毕业后，米勒在美国海军陆战队预备队服役，随后进入政坛。他加入了马可·卢比奥的总统初选竞选团队，之后与当时的候选人唐纳德·J·特朗普合作，参与了他的2016年竞选活动。
特朗普胜选后，米勒担任白宫助手，并与新闻秘书斯蒂芬妮·格里沙姆发展了恋爱关系。
这段关系在大约一年后以激烈的方式结束，格里沙姆在她的回忆录中写道，她曾遭受过一名身为白宫工作人员的男友的身体虐待。
尽管格里沙姆没有指名道姓，但所有人都清楚她指的是米勒，2021年，他起诉她诽谤。他否认曾袭击过她。后来他主动撤回了诉讼，格里沙姆此后也没有公开谈论过这段关系。
2021年特朗普卸任后，米勒与艾米莉·莫雷诺重新取得联系，两人多年前在卢比奥的竞选活动中相识。两人于2022年在新泽西州贝德明斯特的特朗普国家高尔夫俱乐部结婚。
2022年11月，在特朗普的背书下，米勒当选俄亥俄州第七国会选区的议员——这是一个共和党占绝对优势的席位。
根据CNN审查的公开记录以及一位因害怕报复而要求匿名的消息人士的说法，2023年11月米勒和莫雷诺的女儿出生后，他们的关系变得越来越动荡。
这位熟悉这对夫妇的消息人士告诉CNN，米勒和莫雷诺在短暂的婚姻中经历了大量的起起落落。孩子出生后，米勒对妻子的体重增加出言刻薄。结婚两年后，米勒提出离婚。自两人分居以来，围绕女儿的监护权之争愈演愈烈，曝光了针对这位议员的新虐待指控。
在CNN获取的警方录像中，莫雷诺情绪激动地描述了一起他用枪指着她的事件。警方就他们女儿锁骨骨折一事对莫雷诺和米勒进行了采访，该伤情未提出任何指控，警方也告诉CNN，目前没有针对米勒或莫雷诺的 ongoing 调查。
米勒在单独的警方采访中否认曾虐待她，称前妻“善于操纵”，并声称她有精神疾病。
本月早些时候，米勒的前岳父、资深共和党参议员伯尼·莫雷诺首次公开谈及此事，这也让对米勒的审查进一步升级。“正如他私下承认的那样，马克斯·米勒需要接受严肃的心理治疗，”莫雷诺在X平台上写道。“他对我女儿构成威胁，每次他监护我的孙女时，我都提心吊胆。”
据CNN报道，幕后共和党战略家已经警告称，随着共和党人准备在中期选举中为保住众议院席位展开激烈角逐，米勒保住席位的难度极大。
俄亥俄州已过了米勒退出竞选并由其他候选人替代的截止日期。
“我会继续推进，我会赢得这场竞选，”米勒上周在接受CNN的杰克·塔珀采访时说道，并将自己的政治困境与特朗普的相提并论。
科恩说，他的这位前同学好斗的性格并不让他感到意外。
“他还是原来的那个人。”
Former classmates describe Ohio Rep. Max Miller as ‘hotheaded’ and ‘misogynistic’
2026-08-11T20:33:20.415Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/11/politics/max-miller-former-classmates-invs
Dan Cohen sat across the table from a former classmate who had spent years antagonizing him when they were growing up together and playing baseball.
The classmate had something he wanted to get off his chest.
“He was newly sober and just apologizing for just being mean to me,” Cohen recalled of the conversation, which occurred around 2011.
At the time, Cohen said “it meant a lot” because he thought the man sitting across from him had changed his ways.
Now, he’s not so sure.
That former classmate, Cohen said, was Max Miller, the embattled Ohio Republican congressman whose reelection bid has been dogged by allegations of domestic violence and uncontrolled anger leveled by his ex-wife.
The claims by Miller’s ex-wife, Emily Moreno, include accusations that he held a gun to her head and threw hot water at her. Moreno’s attorney, meanwhile, is seeking a restraining order against Miller for himself, alleging in a filing last month that the congressman physically accosted him outside the courtroom and made disparaging remarks about his fiancee’s looks.
In a fiery interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper last week, Miller denied the allegations and accused his ex-wife, the daughter of GOP Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno, of fabricating claims for political reasons.
Miller, 37, has rejected calls to drop out of his congressional race. Instead, he called for a House Ethics Committee investigation into his alleged conduct, which he says will exonerate him. The panel opened an investigation last week. He did not respond to requests for comment on this story.
A CNN examination of Miller’s past conduct, which included a review of public records and interviews with more than half a dozen former classmates and acquaintances revealed that Miller has struggled – as a youth and as an adult – with volatile outbursts and was known to have made his peers uncomfortable with aggressive behavior and insulting comments, at times while intoxicated.
“It did look like he was doing well for a little bit – at least from what I knew,” said Cohen about Miller’s apology some 15 years ago.
“I obviously think different of him now.”
Max Leonard Miller was born into a wealthy family with a long history in northeastern Ohio. His grandfather Samuel was a well-known real estate developer acclaimed for his extensive philanthropy, including charities that helped fund Holocaust education and remembrance.
Miller’s parents stewarded his grandfather’s legacy, overseeing multiple charities in the Cleveland area. Friends who grew up with Miller and his younger brother Jake remember lively Shabbat dinners and involved parents – recalling Miller’s mom and dad attending sports games and cheering them on from the stands.
“It was just a very welcoming house to be in,” said Cohen, who competed against Miller on the baseball team since they both played the same position: catcher.
While Miller’s brother Jake was friendly and kind, acquaintances said, Max had a different reputation. Although he could be as charming at times, classmates told CNN, he tended to be confrontational.
“He was one of those kids where he would be different one-on-one versus in a group,” Cohen said. “When he was one-on-one with you, he could be endearing and honest and let his guard down.”
River McWilliams, who knew Miller growing up, described him as “hotheaded.” As a high school athlete, he said, Miller could throw tantrums typical of a teen player — such as slamming his helmet to the ground after a bad at-bat. But off the field, McWilliams said, “if you ran into him at a party when he had had a little too much drink, he would be quick to kind of like start fights and instigate stuff… He was that kid.”
Another former baseball teammate who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation told CNN that even some parents “were intimidated” by Miller. “It was a combination of his family and money dynamics and also his personality and having that temper.”
Blair Kurit, another classmate, said she remembered Miller as aggressive and sexist. “I don’t really think he was friends with any women. He was belligerent … and definitely misogynistic back then,” she told CNN.
Another former female classmate who also requested to speak to CNN anonymously for fear of retaliation said Miller had a short temper. He “was not a gentle person” in high school, “not someone you wanted to be close with as a female,” she explained. Several former baseball teammates also told CNN they witnessed Miller brag about his sexual exploits and deride girls and women with comments about their physical appearances, particularly their weight.
One story that has circulated widely among Miller’s former classmates stemmed from a party around spring 2006, in which a teenage girl accused Miller of pushing her down some stairs after she rebuffed his advances.
McWilliams told CNN that the party took place at Miller’s parents’ house and that the girl’s distress remains fresh in his mind. He said he didn’t witness the incident, but that he encountered the girl right after she said it occurred. She was “hysterically crying,” he said. “I have vivid memories of walking her kind of down the street, comforting her, making sure that she was OK, checking to see if she needed, you know, medical attention or something like that.”
Politico was the first to report about this incident in 2021. The woman declined to speak to CNN but had texted a Mother Jones reporter that the incident “was one of the more traumatic nights of my life.”
Miller has repeatedly denied the allegation occurred when asked by reporters over the years.
Kurit remembered a different party when they were teenagers where Miller made her uncomfortable. While she and her friend discussed their college plans, Max “said he was going to join the Army, so he could ‘shoot some Arabs.’”
“I remember it because it really disturbed me,” she said. “It was like antithetical to the Shaker Heights ethos” – a reference to the community’s reputation as a liberal haven.
Court and police records show that as a young man, Miller landed in troubling situations that often involved alcohol, drugs or violence.
In 2007, records show he was charged with “disorderly conduct/intoxication” and “obstruction of official business.” The files were sealed by the Shaker Heights Municipal Court, but the public docket for the case shows that the charges were dismissed after he pleaded “no contest” as part of a program for first time offenders.
The Washington Post, which first reported on the case, disclosed that Miller was arrested for allegedly punching a man in the back of the head and then running from police.
The following summer, Miller was charged with underage consumption of alcohol. He pleaded no contest in that case, and the file was also sealed by the court.
While Miller did not respond to CNN’s specific requests about these charges, when contacted by the Post at the time, he said, “Growing up, everyone makes mistakes. … Who I was in the past is not who I am now.”
A couple of years later, in 2010, Miller was out with a group partying in the bustling Coventry neighborhood of Cleveland Heights when he got into an altercation at a hookah bar that ended with him punching through a window around 2 a.m.
The police report, obtained by CNN, described Miller as “bleeding heavily from his left wrist” and said he was taken to the hospital. He was issued a citation for criminal mischief, a misdemeanor.
About nine months later, Miller had another police run-in at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. This time, he was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated after crashing a Jeep into a light pole. According to police records reviewed by CNN, he was discovered the next morning with “bloodshot eyes, an odor of alcohol, and an abrasion on his forehead.” Although he came in under the legal alcohol limit on his blood test, a subsequent lab test showed that Miller’s blood tested positive for drugs including MDMA and Clonazepam.
This incident seems to have been a turning point for Miller. Around this time, he apologized to Cohen, his old baseball teammate, as part of his sobriety journey.
Two additional sources who spoke with CNN confirmed Miller was actively in recovery and appeared to be turning a corner at this time.
After graduating from Cleveland State University in 2013, Miller served in the Marine Corps Reserves and subsequently moved into politics. He joined Marco Rubio’s primary campaign for president before linking up with then-candidate Donald J. Trump to work on his 2016 campaign.
After Trump’s victory, Miller served as a White House aide and entered into a relationship with press secretary Stephanie Grisham.
Their relationship ended acrimoniously around a year later, and Grisham wrote in her memoir about a physically abusive boyfriend who was also a White House staffer.
Although Grisham did not use his name, it seemed clear she was referring to Miller, and in 2021, he sued her for defamation. He has denied ever assaulting her. He later voluntarily dropped the lawsuit, and Grisham has not spoken publicly about the relationship since.
After Trump left office in 2021, Miller reconnected with Emily Moreno, whom he’d met years earlier while working on Rubio’s campaign. The two married in 2022 at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
In November 2022, with Trump’s endorsement, Miller was elected to Congress for Ohio’s 7th District – a solidly Republican seat.
After Miller and Moreno’s daughter was born in November 2023, their relationship became increasingly tumultuous, according to public records reviewed by CNN and a source who requested anonymity given fear of retaliation.
The source, who is familiar with the couple, told CNN that Miller and Moreno went through significant highs and lows during their short marriage. Following the birth of their child, the source said, Miller was cruel to his wife about her weight gain. Two years after their wedding, Miller filed for divorce. Since their split, a messy custody battle over the pair’s daughter has raged, bringing to light new allegations of abuse against the congressman.
In police videos obtained by CNN, Moreno emotionally described an incident in which she says he held a gun to her. Police interviewed Moreno and Miller as part of an investigation into a broken collarbone suffered by their daughter; no charges were filed in relation to that injury and police told CNN there are no ongoing investigations into Miller or Moreno.
Miller, in separate police interviews, denied he ever abused her, called his ex-wife “manipulative” and alleged she struggles with mental illness.
Scrutiny has intensified as Miller’s former father-in-law, senior GOP Sen. Bernie Moreno, addressed the issue publicly for the first time earlier this month. “As he has admitted privately, Max Miller needs serious psychological help,” Moreno said on X. “He is a danger to my daughter, and I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter.”
Behind the scenes, CNN has reported, GOP strategists have warned that Miller faces an uphill battle to keep his seat as Republicans prepare for a significant fight to hang onto the House in the midterms.
The deadline for Miller to pull out of the race and be replaced by another candidate has now passed in Ohio.
“I’m going to continue to push. I am going to win this race,” Miller told CNN’s Jake Tapper last week, comparing his political struggle to that of Trump’s.
Cohen said his former classmate’s pugilistic demeanor does not surprise him.
“He is the same person who he was.”