Bernie Moreno, the Republican candidate for US Senate in Ohio, came to the US from Colombia at the age of four. He has said he learned English through Ronald Reagan’s speeches. That claim has been questioned, but if Moreno did learn the language that way, it seems one famous speech may not have fully sunk in.
At the Republican convention in 1968, Reagan said: “It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.”
Throughout a tight race – in which defeat for Sherrod Brown, the incumbent Democrat, could decide control of the Senate – Moreno has displayed a distinctly un-Reaganlike tendency to dodge responsibility for questions about his own actions, choosing repeatedly to blame others instead, a review of reporting and court documents shows.
Related: Montana park ranger says Senate candidate Tim Sheehy lied about combat wound
Last month, after Moreno was shown to have falsely claimed to hold an MBA from the University of Michigan, including signing legal documents containing the claim, his campaign blamed “a staffer who made a mistake”.
Moreno told a radio host: “I’m proud that I got a bachelor’s of business administration, and I thank some of the reporting pointing out that it was with high distinction. There was a clerical error made by one of my admins, seven, eight, nine years ago, that put that I had an MBA. It was a BBA.”
Moreno may have been right that his opponents “want[ed] a headline” on the issue but he also claimed they wanted “to confuse people, say, this guy lied by going to college. Absolutely not.”
That is not what Democrats say. Bill DeMora, an Ohio state senator, said: “The new reports that prove he is lying about having an MBA from that school up north are disqualifying. Anyone who lies about having a made-up-business degree from Michigan has no business representing Ohioans.”
The episode of the phantom MBA is not the only one in which Moreno has blamed others for alleged missteps.
Also in September, as Brown faced reporting about his late payment of property taxes, Politico reported that “a trust belonging in part to the wealthy Republican Senate candidate [Moreno] was more than a year late on paying a $20,000 tax bill on a house that it owns” in Key Largo, Florida, “leading to the issuance of a lien in June 2023”.
The debt was paid the day of the report, Politico said. A spokesperson for Moreno said the error was not his fault.
“Bernie does not manage the finances related to the house,” Reagan McCarthy said. “One of his siblings does and it was an unfortunate oversight.”
Nor have such moments been confined to the general election campaign. Similar issues affected Moreno during the Republican primary, which he won in May, Donald Trump’s coveted endorsement propelling him past what the Associated Press called “more moderate alternatives”.
In January, multiple outlets reported a Massachusetts case from 2017 in which Moreno was sued for non-payment of overtime at his auto company. According to court records, a judge said Moreno “either did not retain or shredded … monthly reports” that he “knew or should have known” he was required to keep. Ultimately, a jury found Moreno liable for withholding wages and ordered him to pay $416,160 in damages.
Primary opponents raised the issue. Moreno claimed political bias, calling the jury in the case “ridiculous” and the judge “a Harvard elitist lunatic”. The judge in question was appointed by Republicans.
Moreno also blamed the plaintiffs, whom he called “two of my worst salespeople, the guys that never even showed up on time, who didn’t punch in or punch out, who had no proof that they worked overtime”, and blamed the overtime pay issue on a staff member who he said “actually managed payroll”. In court, the staffer testified that she had not been responsible for such matters.
More luridly, back in March, the AP reported that Moreno, who it said had “shifted from a public supporter of LGBTQ+ rights to a hardline opponent” was “confronting questions about the existence of a 2008 profile seeking ‘Men for 1-on-1 sex’ on a casual sexual encounters website called Adult Friend Finder”.
Moreno’s lawyer said the candidate was not behind the account, and provided a statement in which a former Moreno intern, Dan Ricci, said he created the account as “a juvenile prank”.
Contacted for comment, Moreno’s spokesperson did not immediately respond.
