Washington — With roughly a month left before New Jersey chooses its next governor, the gloves have come off following a CBS News investigation that ignited a political firestorm, whipping the campaigns of Republican Jack Ciattarelli and Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill into a frenzy.
It was last week when CBS News reported that a branch of the National Archives admitted it had released a mostly unredacted version of Sherrill’s military records to Nicholas De Gregorio, an ally of Ciattarelli. The documents included her Social Security number and other personal information.
Now, the threat of lawsuits hangs over the race as a barrage of new media attacks are launched in the high-stakes gubernatorial contest. Sherrill and Democrats have alleged her unredacted records were released intentionally, which Ciattarelli’s campaign strongly denies, blaming it on “laziness” by the National Archives.
Ciattarrelli: Spencer Platt/Getty Images; Sherrill: Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg via Getty Images 
Sherrill’s attorneys with the Elias Law Group, a law firm targeted earlier this year by President Trump, issued multiple cease-and-desist letters to Ciattarelli and his allies following CBS News’ report. Ciattarelli has been endorsed by Mr. Trump.
In letters addressed to Ciattarelli and his campaign, De Gregorio and campaign consultant Chris Russell, attorneys for Sherrill demanded no further dissemination of the congresswoman’s military file and that all copies of her service records be destroyed while also preserving documents such as emails and text messages that might be relevant in future legal proceedings.
In response to the cease-and-desist letters, Mark Sheridan of the law firm Squire Patton Boggs, who represents Ciattarelli’s campaign, wrote that the campaign will not destroy the records because “they are all exculpatory in nature.” He said the campaign will preserve copies of Sherrill’s military file, citing “the absurd and baseless demands by Congressional Democrats for investigations.”
CBS News discovered the Archives’ blunder while investigating whether Sherrill was involved in the 1994 Naval Academy scandal, where more than 100 midshipmen were implicated in cheating on an exam. Sherrill was not accused of cheating but admitted to CBS News that she was barred from the processional at her Naval Academy graduation for not informing on her fellow classmates.
De Gregorio, a Marine veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan who unsuccessfully ran as a Republican for Congress in New Jersey, told CBS News that Russell asked him to see what he could find on Sherrill. On his own, De Gregorio submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act to the National Personnel Records Center seeking Sherrill’s military records, and eventually received them.
The documents, which were also obtained by CBS News, included Sherrill’s Social Security number, which appears on almost every page, home addresses for her and her parents, life insurance information, Sherrill’s performance evaluations and the nondisclosure agreement between her and the U.S. government to safeguard classified information. The only details redacted in the document are the Social Security numbers of her former superiors. According to a signature verification page in the documents, the files appear to be the same ones Sherrill requested in August 2017 from the National Personnel Records Center, or NPRC, a division of the Archives that houses military records.
CBS News reviewed De Gregorio’s request to the Archives and found it properly acknowledged that personal information and medical details would be redacted. The Archives told CBS News, “We do not believe that there was any attempt to deceive NPRC staff in this case.”
Democrats demand investigation
Despite the National Archives admitting fault, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters on Thursday that he supports a “criminal investigation into the unauthorized and illegal release of Sherrill’s records.
“It’s outrageous that Donald Trump and his administration and political hacks connected to them continue to violate the law,” said Jeffries, a New York Democrat. “And they will be held accountable.”
In a new campaign ad released Monday, Sherrill’s campaign alleged that the Trump administration released her military records to the Ciattarelli campaign. The Democrat accuses the former New Jersey state representative of “breaking the law” by distributing her records, and alleges Ciattarelli’s campaign refused to return the records.
Sheridan, the attorney for the Ciattarelli for Governor campaign, wrote in his response letter that neither the campaign nor Russell were aware that they were in possession of records from the National Archives and Records Administration, or NARA, until a CBS News reporter informed them that they had received Sherrill’s mostly unredacted records because of the Archives’ mistake.
“Once the campaign learned from the reporter that it was in possession of information that NARA released erroneously, those individuals in possession of the material were advised not to disseminate it and did not disseminate it anywhere since that time,” wrote Sheridan.
He later added: “NARA admitted its technician made an error in releasing the information provided to Mr. DeGregorio. In fact, it appears that the technician simply copied information that was provided to Representative Sherrill in 2017 when she made a similar FOIA request for her own records. This is not some nefarious plot, but rather laziness on the part of a technician at NARA.”
The National Personnel Records Center told CBS News it alerted the agency’s inspector general to the breach last week. On Tuesday, Politico reported the Archive’s inspector general has launched an investigation into the release of Sherrill’s military records.
The Archives apologized to both De Gregorio and Sherill in letters for their “serious error” while asking De Gregorio to not disseminate the record further.
The White House referred CBS News’ request for comment to the National Archives.
Ciattarelli focuses on Naval Academy scandal
Since CBS News’ report, the Ciattarelli campaign and other Republicans have been grilling Sherrill, attempting to implicate her in the 1994 Naval Academy cheating scandal, but she has denied any involvement. The Ciattarelli campaign has called on her to release records related to the issue, since neither the documents released by the Archives to De Gregorio nor the documents released to CBS News under the Freedom of Information Act speak to any role in the scandal.
A document obtained by CBS News — which is not in the files released by the Archives — shows that Sherrill’s name was omitted from a commencement program on May 25, 1994, the date of the Naval Academy graduation. The program was confirmed to be authentic by the U.S. Naval Academy.
When asked by CBS News why her name does not appear in the commencement program, Sherrill said in a statement: “When I was an undergraduate at the Naval Academy[,] I didn’t turn in some of my classmates, so I didn’t walk, but graduated and was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Navy, serving for nearly ten years with the highest level of distinction and honor.”
She added: “That Jack Ciattarelli and the Trump administration are illegally weaponizing my records for political gain is a violation of anyone who has ever served our country. No veteran’s record is safe.”
Critics of the congresswoman have pointed out that Sherill’s husband, Jason Hedberg, was also linked to the Naval Academy scandal. In Feb. 1994, some three months before the May graduation, he and about four dozen other midshipmen asked a federal judge in the District of Columbia to block any disciplinary action by the Academy. While it’s unclear to what extent Hedberg was involved, if any, his name is included in the 1994 commencement program.
CBS News did not report on Hedberg in its original report on Sherrill because he’s not seeking office and because his name was included in the commencement program. Separately, Sherrill is now under scrutiny after her two children were accepted into the Naval Academy.
In June, her congressional office announced that her children —Lincoln and Margaret Hegberg—were among the 22 students from New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District set to attend military service academies.
The New York Post reported Monday that Democratic Sen. Cory Booker and former interim Sen. George Helmy, both of New Jersey, each nominated one of the two children to the Naval Academy. Sherrill told the newspaper her children did not compete in her congressional office’s service academy nomination process but instead applied separately to the New Jersey senators’ offices.
“There really is no doubt in my mind that this was fully intentional from the Trump administration to the Ciattarelli campaign to do this. They have continued now to go after my family, my husband’s service, my kids in a completely inappropriate way,” Sherrill told Rachel Maddow of MSNBC on Monday.
