Max Miller Defends Releasing Nude Photo of His Toddler

Ohio Representative Max Miller crashed and burned while attempting to downplay releasing a nude image of his young daughter as part of his crusade to deny domestic abuse allegations.

During an interview on CNN Tuesday evening, Miller defended sharing a Dropbox folder over the weekend that contained a nude image of his two-year-old daughter that could qualify as child sexual abuse material.

Anchor Jake Tapper asked Miller to explain the “shockingly reckless behavior” as the lawmaker challenged horrific abuse allegations brought by his ex-wife, Emily Moreno.

“I wouldn’t say that it’s shockingly reckless,” Miller said, claiming that the photograph was already available to the public because it was part of an investigation by Child Protective Services.

“This is being taken very much out of context,” Miller said. “There is no genitalia of my daughter that was exposed. And this is once again a very salacious headline.”

“We called the court today, it’s not publicly available,” Tapper said, noting that Miller’s attorney, Aaron Minc, had publicly apologized for releasing the photo.

“I’m not defending it, it’s awful,” Miller said.

“You just defended it. You said it’s taken out of context,” Tapper said.

“‘Cus it is taken out of context, in terms of how the articles have been written about it. I didn’t do this. My attorney took full responsibility. I believe that it’s awful. There was never any intent to do that,” Miller said.

An analysis conducted by Politico’s Playbook of metadata of four documents in Miller’s Dropbox folder revealed that the authorship was “Office of Rep. Max Miller—Legal Counsel.” After Playbook asked if congressional resources were used to create them, Minc said he would alter the metadata, which now reads: “Minc Law LLC.” Minc also said the error may have been the result of AI use.

Phil Poe, Miller’s chief of staff, told Playbook that Miller had been the only one to handle the Dropbox documents, and insisted that Miller’s office doesn’t employ anyone with the title of “legal counsel.”

This news is the latest domino to fall for Miller. Republican Senator Bernie Moreno, Miller’s ex-father-in-law, finally came out against the lawmaker on Sunday, saying he needed “serious psychological help” and calling on him to step down from Congress and abandon his current reelection campaign. Moreno has since accused Miller of holding his daughter’s favorite stuffed animal hostage, and of putting Moreno’s family through “the seventh level of hell.”

On Monday night, Miller reportedly received a call from President Donald Trump—who has publicly said he feels “badly” for the Republican congressman—to tell him that “things aren’t looking good” for his campaign. Miller was dealt another blow that same night when his ex-girlfriend, former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, filed a temporary restraining order against him.

Abdul El-Sayed has won the Democratic nomination for the Senate in Michigan, narrowly defeating Representative Haley Stevens in a close contest.

Decision Desk called the race for El-Sayed Tuesday morning, projecting him as the winner with 48.52 percent of the vote to Stevens’s 47.47 percent.

El-Sayed, an epidemiologist and the former Wayne County health director, edged out Stevens despite her receiving heavy financial backing from groups aligned with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. El-Sayed now moves on to the general election, where he’ll face Republican Representative Mike Rogers in November and have a shot at becoming the first Muslim U.S. senator. 

Stevens received $62 million in advertising from outside groups, with $31.9 million of that coming from the United Democracy Project, AIPAC’s super PAC. It wasn’t enough to help her in the end, and El-Sayed called out the massive spending in their final debate last week, pointing out that Stevens had just voted for a pro-Israel resolution. 

“That is the pro quo that comes with the quid,” El-Sayed said in the beginning of the debate. “It really comes down to how you are funded.”

On the campaign trail, El-Sayed emphasized a message of supporting affordability and opposing inequality (issues that he has written about for The New Republic), touting his support for Medicare for All and even offering a comprehensive AI regulation plan.  Down the stretch, Stevens was accused of Islamophobia for some of her campaign ads, including those paid for by the United Democracy Project, and insinuating that El-Sayed was an antisemite.

President Trump went further on Wednesday, posting on Truth Social that El-Sayed’s win was “Great News for the Republican Party” and calling him a “Communist loser who hates Jews and Israel.” 

This story has been updated.

North Carolina Representative Chuck Edwards has called it quits on his reelection race.

“After much prayer and reflection, I’ve decided to withdraw from my reelection campaign,” Edwards wrote on X early Wednesday morning. “I will complete my current term.”

The congressman’s sudden exit came after the House Ethics Committee recommended that he be censured for “persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct towards two young female staffers.”

In a 25-page report published Monday, the committee listed out numerous occasions on which the married Republican had seemingly violated House rules relating to sexual harassment and hostile workplaces, revealing in detail how he made the women in his employ feel uncomfortable or unsafe.

The list included “intimate” and expensive dinners, casino dates, strip club visits, expensive gifts, massages, and an insistence on personally handling the women’s yardwork or Christmas tree decorating—which Edwards skipped House votes to make time for.

Edwards even wrote and performed poetry for one of his female staffers, hired a singer to perform Ed Sheeran’s “Hills of Aberfeldy” at one of their birthday parties, planned full-day excursions with them, and wrote personal notes expressing his “effusive affection.”

The committee report also noted that many messages were missing from Edwards’s phone, including a photograph that depicted 30 different types of ice cream that he had delivered to one of his staffers’ houses, and her subsequent response that “this seems a bit excessive.”

The report found no evidence that Edwards had engaged in sexual activity or “explicitly propositioned” the women, but found plentiful evidence that he had repeatedly made his staff feel scared and uncomfortable with his behavior.

Yet Edwards’s exit from the race comes months after the legal deadline to do so (the deadline to withdraw was back in December). As a result, his name will most likely remain on the ballot come November, and any votes he receives will still be counted toward him, as explained by the state Board of Elections.

Despite campaigning to bring back free speech, President Trump has been a serial violator of the First Amendment to the Constitution, according to a new report. 

A Reuters investigation found 75 rulings from federal judges that Trump infringed on constitutional freedoms such as religion, freedom, and the press. Many had to do with the Trump administration’s attacks on pro-Palestine advocacy, and the rulings came from judges appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents. In September, for example, a Reagan-appointed federal judge found that the administration illegally revoked visas and deported foreign faculty and students over their stance on Palestine and Israel.

“The President’s palpable misunderstanding that the government simply cannot seek retribution for speech he disdains poses a great threat to Americans’ freedom of speech,” U.S. District Judge William Young wrote in his ruling.

Other judicial rebukes had to do with Trump’s attacks on law firms, his termination of grants for universities that seemingly go against his ideological agenda, and use of excessive force against protesters. 

Trump has attacked federal judges who rule against him, leveling insults and accusing them of being “activists.” While most of the president’s legal losses came from judges appointed by Democratic presidents, 10 of them came from Republican appointees. Many of the lawsuits filed against Trump came from media outlets or organizations that ideologically oppose Trump, Reuters found.  

Oftentimes, the lawsuits challenged Trump’s executive orders, which have sought to take revenge against his enemies or target ideological viewpoints that the president opposes. Trump has attacked everything from diversity, equity and ⁠inclusion to gender ideology with executive orders, with only federal courts standing in the way, thanks to an unwilling Republican-controlled Congress. All of this goes to show that Trump may be the most anti–free speech president ever.

President Trump’s Justice Department lost yet another attempt to access a state’s unredacted voter rolls, bringing its record to 0 for 20.

U.S. District Judge Philip Brimmer on Monday delivered the Trump administration its twentieth straight loss, ruling that the Justice Department could not offer a legitimate reason for the executive branch to be granted access to Colorado’s voter rolls. The lawsuit was filed against Colorado’s Democratic secretary of state, Jena Griswold.

Brimmer, a George W. Bush appointee, dismissed the case with prejudice, as he could not identify a legitimate reason for the executive branch to be granted access to something that has never been under its constitutional jurisdiction.

“In cases where the United States has sought [statewide voter registration lists] pursuant to § 20703, courts have found that ‘a voter registration list is not a record subject to retention and preservation under § 20701,’” Brimmer wrote. “Title III’s commands therefore pertain to records and papers that election officials receive from prospective voters to support the exercise of the suffrage by the prospective voters, not lists or other tools created by election officials for the purpose of preserving the information provided by voters and ensuring that persons appearing to vote are registered.”

“The attorney general is simply not entitled to the NYSVoter List under Title III,” he continued. “This conclusion is supported by six recent district court decisions which have determined that voter registration lists are not records subject to retention and preservation.”

Colorado’s loss likely won’t be the administration’s last. U.S. District Judge Kymberly Evanson on Tuesday appeared to reject the DOJ’s argument using Title III of the Civil Rights Act (which states that all voting records should be retained and preserved “for a period of twenty-two months”) to justify gaining access to the Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses, and birthdates of American citizens.

“By my count, this is the twentieth court to address this exact issue,” Evanson said. “Is there any meaningful basis on which to distinguish this case from the many other district courts and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals across the country that have dismissed the government’s complaints or denied their motion to compel?”

“No, your Honor,” DOJ attorney Raymond Yang admitted. “Relevant facts are similar to all the other cases.”

It’s abundantly clear that this is not a winning strategy in Trump’s greater mission of purging voter rolls to exert his executive will upon elections that are already free and fair.

“Rather than addressing any real problem, these lawsuits seek private voter information that is protected under state law,” Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said. “The DOJ’s demands for complete voter rolls are another example of federal overreach and an attempt to exert control over our elections. My office will continue defending Washington voters’ private information while ensuring the integrity of our voter roll remains secure, accurate, and trustworthy.”

While Evanson is a Biden appointee, Brimmer and 11 other judges who rejected the Trump administration’s voter suppression efforts were appointed by Republican presidents—with eight being appointed by Trump himself. The DOJ has now sued in 30 total states and the District of Columbia: California, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Massachusetts, Georgia, Illinois, Wisconsin, Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, New Jersey, Connecticut, Arizona, Virginia, Idaho, and Washington—all unsuccessfully.