Democratic nominee Mikie Sherrill on Friday morning once again insisted the release of her personal military records in the midst of New Jersey’s high-profile governor’s race is a weaponization of the federal government by President Donald Trump and her Republican challenger.
“My opponent and the Trump administration will stop at nothing,” Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot who is now a congresswoman, said in an appearance on MSNBC. “They will completely weaponize the federal government to achieve what they want.”
The campaign of her Republican opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, fired back with a statement denying the allegations and saying Sherrill is trying to “distract attention” from a report Thursday that she was barred from walking in her Naval Academy graduation in 1994 amid a famous cheating scandal.
Sherrill has said she didn’t march because she would not turn in classmates involved, though she declined to release her disciplinary records showing the cause.
The statements were the latest barbs in a dustup that has drawn national attention and upended the race to become New Jersey’s next governor with less than six weeks to go before the Nov. 4 election.
Ciattarelli Sherrill
We just witnessed one of the craziest days in N.J. politics history. What happens next?
The National Archives admitted Thursday that it mistakenly released largely un-redacted copies of Sherrill’s military documents — which included her Social Security number and other personally sensitive information — to a Ciattarelli ally.
Sherrill equated the release with this week’s indictment of former FBI director James Comey for allegedly making false statements to Congress. Comey, a longtime Trump nemisis, was indicted days after the president called for him to be criminally charged.
Sherrill said she was similarly targeted, accusing the Trump administration and the Ciattarelli campaign of working together to illegally distribute the files. She has threatened legal action.
“He’s desperate,” Sherrill said about Ciattarelli.
Ciattarelli’s attorneys sent a letter to Sherrill’s team on Friday that it was never “in possession” of files related to the scandal and that any claim the campaign was in “a conspiracy to smear Sherrill with ”ill-gotten documents is completely false.”
His campaign also released a statement Friday pressing Sherrill again on the graduation story.
“Yesterday, when confronted with irrefutable evidence of her name not appearing in the 1994 U.S. Naval Academy Commencement Ceremony program, Mikie Sherrill was forced to admit she was implicated and punished as part of the massive cheating and honor concept scandal that involved her graduating class, and has since tried to distract attention away from that fact with false accusations and half-truths about what amounts to a clerical error by the National Archives which they took responsibility for and apologized for publicly,” Ciattarelli’s team said.
The campaign again called on Sherrill to release her full Naval Academy records, including disciplinary files.
“She could clear this all up by approving the release of her disciplinary records, but she won’t,” Ciattarelli said Thursday night on Fox News. “Which begs more questions than it answers.”
NJ Advance Media staff writer Brent Johnson contributed to this report.
Matthew Enuco
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