# Bernie Moreno Republican U.S. Senator from Ohio since January 2025, having unseated three-term Democrat [[Sherrod Brown]] in one of the most expensive Senate races of 2024. A Colombian-born businessman and Trump-endorsed first-time officeholder, his win helped cement the Republican Senate majority. ## The Fauci Hearing (July 29, 2026) Moreno's highest-profile moment in office came during the [[Fauci Diary Hearing]], the [[Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee]] session at which [[Anthony Fauci]] — subpoenaed by chair [[Rand Paul]] — invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times. Using his questioning time on a witness who had already announced he would not answer, Moreno shouted: **"Here I am sitting in front of you six years later saying, 'Who the f--- do you think you were for doing that?' It is a total disgrace what you did to this country."** See [[Bernie Moreno - who the fuck do you think you were]]. Moreno has said Fauci's influence over pandemic policy — Ohio's mask mandates specifically — is what motivated him to run for the Senate in the first place. The exchange, rather than any testimony, became the clip that circulated from the hearing. ## The Max Miller Case The same week, Moreno was at the center of a story he was not speaking about. His daughter, **Emily Moreno**, is the ex-wife of Rep. [[Max Miller]] (R-OH). A July 2026 *Mother Jones* investigation, built on roughly 2,000 pages of court filings and police reports, documented her allegations that Miller threw scalding water at her, shoved her against a wall, held a gun to her head, and caused a fractured collarbone in their two-year-old daughter. Miller denies the central claims. As of July 29, 2026 — the day of the Fauci hearing — Moreno had said nothing publicly about his former son-in-law, who was running for a third term with no Republican leader calling for his resignation. [[Heather Cox Richardson]]'s letter of that date set the two volumes side by side: the senator shouting profanity at a retired civil servant over mask guidance, and silent about a sitting member of his own party accused of violence against his own daughter and granddaughter. **The silence broke in early August.** Moreno became the **first Republican to call for Miller's resignation**. Within days, Senate Republicans including Katie Britt (R-AL), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), and Roger Marshall (R-KS) backed him, and on August 6 Ohio's other senator, [[Jon Husted]], joined. The House Ethics Committee opened an investigation. Miller stayed in the race. The sequence is what makes it worth recording rather than the silence alone. Party discipline held until the person who broke it was a Republican senator whose own family was the injured party — at which point the position reversed across the conference in under a week. ## See Also - [[Fauci Diary Hearing]] - [[Max Miller]] - [[Jon Husted]] - [[Anthony Fauci]] - [[Rand Paul]] - [[Bernie Moreno - who the fuck do you think you were]] - [[Sherrod Brown]] — the incumbent he defeated in 2024