Vilifying Immigrants and Separating Families
- Miller led the Department of Homeland Security’s public defense of the “zero tolerance” immigration policy at the southern border that led to the separation of thousands of children from their families. [NBC News, accessed 04/13/21]
- At DHS, Miller came to the defense of border patrol officials who used tear gas, pepper spray, and smoke on migrants trying to cross the southern border. [CNN, 01/01/19]
- At DHS, Miller pushed NBC News to retract an accurate story about the number of known or suspected terrorists crossing the border; NBC News used numbers that were lower than the DHS numbers, which a whistleblower alleged were inflated to gather support for a border wall. [NBC News, 09/10/20]
- According to Miller, DHS sent her to the border to see child separations to try and make her “more compassionate” but she concluded that the trip “didn’t work.” [Business Insider, 07/07/20]
COVID Disinformation
- As the top communications aide to Vice President Mike Pence — who had been tasked with overseeing the federal Coronavirus response — Miller was placed in charge of reviewing all public messaging about the pandemic from across the government. [CNN, 02/28/20]
- Email records show Miller coordinating media contacts for Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn during a time period in which the FDA was under intense pressure from the White House to validate Trump’s false claims about potential COVID-19 treatments. [American Oversight, 10/19/20]
- An internal Department of Health and Human Services email identified Miller as one of a set of contacts from the White House and Pence’s office who “should receive clearance emails” to approve (or block) potential print and broadcast interviews of public affairs officials at agencies including HHS, the FDA, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [American Oversight, 10/19/20]
- Miller was Pence’s communications director when he published a June 2020 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled “There Isn’t a Coronavirus ‘Second Wave’” and proclaiming the administration’s response to be a success. [Wall Street Journal, 06/16/20]