Ohio Rep. Max Miller's attorney says he alone is responsible for accidentally including a sensitive photo of Miller's two-year-old daughter in a Dropbox folder the congressman shared publicly online, a mistake now fueling calls for Miller's resignation and a formal House Ethics Committee investigation.
Miller posted the folder on X on August 2 alongside an almost-20-minute video denying domestic abuse allegations made by his former wife, Emily Moreno, the daughter of U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio. The folder was meant to contain documents supporting Miller's defense. Instead, it included a photo of his toddler daughter that Moreno's attorneys now allege could constitute child sexual abuse material.
Attorney Aaron Minc, who assembled the folder's contents, told USA Today through a statement first reported by Mediaite that the inclusion was entirely his fault. He said he was the only person who touched the files.
"To be clear, this was completely my fault. I am solely responsible for what happened. I was the only person responsible for assembling, creating, reviewing, adding, deleting, redacting, or making any changes to the information and files that were in this folder."
Minc added that the mistake was "completely unintentional" and that he corrected the file the moment he discovered the problem on Monday morning.
But the damage was already done. Breitbart reported that the unredacted image had already garnered more than 204,000 views before it was removed, and that Minc had missed the last three pages of a document exceeding 40 pages during the redaction process.
Emily Moreno's legal team wasted no time pressing the issue. In a letter to Minc posted on X by a New York Times reporter, her attorneys demanded answers about who removed the images from the second folder, and why.
"Who removed the images from the second folder and why? Was it because someone realized that it was ill-advised (and in the case of potential CSAM image, illegal) to share these images with the world?"
The letter alleged the photo "could be considered Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM)" because, according to the Washington Examiner, Moreno's lawyer claimed the daughter's genitals appeared visible in the image. Moreno's team set an August 5 end-of-business deadline for Miller to respond to a list of questions.
Miller pushed back on that characterization during a CNN appearance. He told anchor Jake Tapper that no genitalia was exposed and called the description "a very salacious headline." He blamed his attorney for the error and said there was never any intent to share the image.
The photo's origin traces to a February 18 text conversation between Miller and Moreno. Miller told his then-wife he was taking their daughter for an x-ray after noticing a bruise while bathing her. Moreno asked for a photo, and Miller sent an image file. Moreno's court filing alleges that image ended up in a sub-folder within the publicly shared Dropbox link.
The timeline on August 2 moved fast. Miller posted the original Dropbox link on X at 10:23 a.m., inviting "everyone who is interested to take a look." By 11 a.m., he posted a clarifying message explaining he had paid his personal lawyer to produce the folder. At 11:35 a.m., a new Dropbox folder appeared via a Facebook post stating the link was "back online."
USA Today reviewed the active Dropbox link and confirmed the sensitive image was no longer present. But the roughly 70-minute window between the first post and the replacement folder gave the photo wide exposure.
Emily Moreno's spokesperson, Stefan Mychajliw, called the video Miller released alongside the folder a "shameful," "lie-filled rant" made to "desperately try to save his political career."
The situation drew Sen. Bernie Moreno into the public fight for the first time in two years. The Republican senator said Miller should not be in Congress and needs to seek professional help, his first public comments on the matter since his daughter's allegations surfaced.
Fox News reported that Moreno went further, calling Miller "a danger to my daughter" and demanding he resign before a Wednesday ballot replacement deadline.
In a statement, the senator described the ordeal in personal terms:
"As a father and husband, I can tell you the last two years have been pure hell for my wife Bridget, our daughter Emily, me, and our entire family in the aftermath of Emily's divorce."
Miller fired back on X, calling Moreno's response "all political."
On August 4, Miller announced on X that he was opening an ethics investigation into himself "to clear my name from these horrific attacks on myself and family," adding that he has "nothing to hide." Congress has a specific process for these matters through the Office of Congressional Conduct and the bipartisan House Committee on Ethics.
But the investigation did not stay self-initiated for long. The Associated Press reported that the House Ethics Committee opened a formal investigation into whether Miller engaged in domestic violence, abuse, or illegal drug use, adding official congressional scrutiny to a scandal that had been building for months.
Miller launched a defamation lawsuit against Emily Moreno in May, and the letter from her attorneys appears to be part of that ongoing litigation. No criminal charges have been filed against Miller, and no court or agency has substantiated the abuse allegations, according to Miller's own statements.
The Dropbox folder was not the only piece of Miller's defense strategy to create problems. The New York Post reported that Miller released secretly recorded audio from an August 20, 2024 confrontation with Emily Moreno, recordings that ended up corroborating key elements of her claims rather than undermining them. In the audio, Emily stated she found needles by Miller's bed, took photos of them, and said she was "honest-to-God scared" of him. Miller separately admitted to receiving testosterone replacement therapy.
Despite mounting pressure from his former father-in-law, his own party, and even President Trump, who privately told Miller his candidacy "doesn't look good", the congressman refused to step aside. Miller faces an August 10 deadline if he were to withdraw, the date by which Ohio party nominating committees must certify replacement candidates.
Trump stopped short of publicly calling for Miller to exit, telling reporters he considers Miller "a good person" and would "let them figure that out."
Miller, for his part, framed his refusal to quit in personal terms, saying he would never let his daughter see her father "walk away as a quitter."
An attorney's redaction mistake put a child's photo in front of 204,000 people. Whatever the courts and the Ethics Committee ultimately find, that fact alone tells voters something about the judgment on display, and no amount of Dropbox folders can redact it.
