Scandal-plagued Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) may have made a veiled threat to out anti-LGBTQ+ Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) for having sex with men, longtime gay journalist Michelangelo Signorile publicly suggested in his Substack post yesterday.
While Moreno angrily swore at former White House medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci this week during his televised Senate appearance, Signorile wrote that Moreno has stayed “grotesquely silent” about shocking allegations that Miller threw scalding water on his daughter and held a gun to hear head and also broke the collarbone of his two-year-old granddaughter. (Moreno’s daughter is Miller’s ex-wife, and Miller has denied the allegations.)
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When asked about the allegations for a July 28 The New York Times article, Moreno’s spokesperson said, “Senator Moreno’s top priority is the safety and well-being of his daughter and granddaughter. While he will not litigate these matters in the media or respond to baseless public attacks, he will do whatever it takes to ensure a just outcome for his family.”
Signorile noted that Moreno’s “cowardly” lack of public support for his own daughter’s claims might be to avoid hurting Miller’s re-election chances, especially as recent polling has seen Miller’s district trend from Republican-leaning to Democratic since the president’s 2024 re-election.
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However, Signorile then pointed out that court filings related to Miller’s ex-wife seeking of a restraining order against him included a text message threat that Miller made to Bernie Moreno.
“I’m sick of this, you know I never hurt our daughter. Take this however you want, everyone is going to get to know you better than your wife does,” Miller wrote to Bernie Moreno in the text. “Enjoy the ride brother, I wouldn’t have to do this if you could keep your lying daughter under control.”
While the text doesn’t clearly express Miller’s exact meaning, Signorile pointed out that a March 28, 2024 Associated Press report found a profile seeking “1-on-1” sexual encounters with “young guys” on the Adult Friend Finder website; the profile was created using Moreno’s work email address.
“Hi, looking for young guys to have fun with while traveling,” the profile said, alongside its username, “nardo19672,” which seemingly referenced Moreno’s full first name, Bernardo, and his birth year and month. The profile also listed his full date of birth but didn’t include a photo. Geolocation data showed that it was set up from an internet address in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where Moreno’s parents owned a home in 2008. The profile reportedly stayed unused six hours after it was created over 15 years ago, but its data became accessible through a massive website leak in 2016.
When the Associated Press published its story in 2024, Moreno’s lawyer, Charles Harder, said that Dan Ricci, who served as an intern at Moreno’s company in late 2008, created the Adult Friend Finder profile.
“I am thoroughly embarrassed by an aborted prank I pulled on my friend and former boss, Bernie Moreno, nearly two decades ago,” Ricci said in a statement provided to the media outlet by Harder. Ricci donated $6,599 to Moreno’s Senate campaign in 2023, a race Moreno eventually won.
Signorile wrote that he found Ricci’s excuse “highly implausible,” adding, “What was the prank? How does it work? And wouldn’t the profile have been more elaborate and exaggerated if it were a prank? Why a simple solicitation for sex? And why would an intern prank their boss like this—it’s not a ‘prank,’ after all, it’s sexual harassment—in a way that would surely get him fired, but instead he’s now a friend and campaign donor?”
Signorile also noted that Moreno “used to be a big supporter of LGBTQ rights [as] a car dealership owner who contributed to the cause, promoted marriage equality and defended his own gay son in years past. That was all before Moreno became MAGA and threw his son under the bus, shifting all his positions on LGBTQ rights.”
Miller married his now ex-wife, Moreno’s daughter Emily Moreno, in an August 2022 ceremony at the president’s New Jersey golf club with the president in attendance. Two years later, she began divorce proceedings against Miller, seeking custody of their 2-year-old daughter. When her allegations against him became public, he filed a defamation suit against her.
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