Bombshell Miller Allegations Are Alarming
Bombshell Miller Allegations Are Alarming
Lieutenant Governor 's alleged behavior must be investigated. Maryland’s taxpayers deserve to know what kind of person their Lieutenant Governor really is.
Over two months, The Independent spoke to more than two dozen individuals engaged in Democratic politics in the state, largely concentrated in Montgomery County — the wealthiest county in the state. Many were involved in the 2018 race to represent the state’s 6th congressional district, and described the primary for that seat as an all-out brawl where party insiders traded favours while treating their opponents with such toxicity that many felt strongly discouraged from further participation in the process — if they weren’t frozen out of it entirely.
To be clear, foul play isn’t exactly a new concept in Maryland. There’s still well-known bad blood between two of the state’s sitting members of the House over a 2016 primary which was the most expensive in the nation’s history and resulted in the election of Democrat star Rep Jamie Raskin. His opponent, now-Congressman David Trone, was meanwhile forced to fire three staffers who posed surreptitiously as members of Mr Raskin’s campaign.
But many of the more recent concerning allegations centre around Aruna Miller – the 58-year-old lieutenant governor who became the highest-ranking South Asian statewide elected official in the United States when she took office in January. She did so alongside Wes Moore, the first Black governor of Maryland. Ms Miller, who immigrated from India at the age of seven, has found herself accused of wide-reaching ties to donors affiliated with Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the broader Hindutva movement — a Hindu nationalist ideology regarded by its critics as being on the extreme far-right.
I have long attributed concerns will Miller’s ties to the fascist Hindutva movement as quackery from people who are far too habitually online for their own good. I still do, based on the fact that Miller’s far-left politics are a contrast from the fascist nature of Hindutva.
But the real story here is not that. It’s alleged bullying from Miller and her husband:
But he thought little of the talk, even, he says after Ms Miller “started lecturing me basically … put a finger in my face, that whole thing.”
Mr Messick says that changed a few minutes later, when after leaving he noticed a white Mercedes with one functional headlight appear to change lanes to follow closely behind him as he drove down a multi-lane highway through the suburbs. His military training kicking in, Mr Messick described as the car appeared to get close behind him at one point, almost like a police officer just before pulling someone over.
“Every time I would change lanes, he would change lanes,” said Mr Messick.
The car, with its one shining front light, would follow Mr Messick to a parking lot a short distance away from his actual residence. There, he says, it came to a halt — right behind him. In his rearview mirror, much to Mr Messick’s surprise, his follower came into view.
“I pulled off and parked and I sat there. And he pulled in right behind me and stared right at my car,” recalled Mr Messick.
Explaining that he wasn’t thinking clearly, Mr Messick said he called a friend — wishing later that he had instead contacted the police.
“David Miller followed me home!” he exclaimed on the call.
This is not the only alleged instance of bullying from the Miller Camp
For some, the cost of brushing up against the state political machine allegedly meant constant harassment from an army of online trolls whose actions had real-life consequences.
That was the description given by Barnaby Yeh, a Maryland-born activist of Taiwanese descent who told The Independent that his founding of a group that questioned Ms Miller about her BJP ties provoked a wave of backlash on social media that cost him and others their jobs and personal livelihoods.
“We asked her in a press release to clarify her stance [on Mr Modi’s party],” Mr Yeh, now living in Taiwan, said in an interview. This “unleashed a massive following of political insiders”, according to Mr Yeh, which saw activists’ social media pages flooded with negative comments.
“I lost my job, as did another one of my fellow activists. One activist was barred from local political events,” said Mr Yeh. “Another was suddenly stripped of being a party precinct official. Two others believed that they had to leave politics altogether because of how many people harassed them regularly on social media. As for myself, I was out of a stable job for years, driving me to move abroad.”
I encourage you to read the entire story and draw your own conclusions.
What does need to happen, however, is that Lt. Governor Aruna Miller needs to be thoroughly investigated for this alleged behavior. The allegations levied at her and her political machine are incredibly alarming and beneath the dignity of a statewide elected official in Maryland.1 The House Health & Government Operations Committee should immediately hold hearings on the issue and determine what, if any, wrongdoing Miller occurred and what activities may have occurred using state resources.
Maryland’s taxpayers deserve to know what kind of person their Lieutenant Governor really is and what legitimacy, if any, these bombshell allegations have.
Not that she’s the first; see Marvin Mandel or Martin O’Malley