A former rival of New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial nominee Mikie Sherrill said Thursday it’s “fair” to demand she release her military disciplinary records to provide a firm answer once and for all about her potential involvement in a cheating scandal at the US Naval Academy.
“I think that Democrats need to be careful. I mean, at the same time that they were saying, ‘Release the Epstein files,’ they’re saying, ‘Don’t release the files in defending Mikie,’” Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop told reporter David Cruz on his “Hold That Thought …” podcast.
“There’s probably validity for the fact that if we’re being transparent on everything, just be transparent on everything,” continued Fulop, who finished a distant third behind Sherrill and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka in the June 10 Democratic primary. “And there probably is more to explore in that military component.”
“That’s fair.”
Sherrill has faced pressure to divulge her full disciplinary records after the New Jersey Globe revealed in late September that she was barred from walking at her Annapolis commencement in 1994.
Initially, the four-term congresswoman claimed that she was barred from walking because she “didn’t turn in some of my classmates.”
“There was a test at the school that was stolen. I did not realize that it was stolen. I took the test. Afterwards, I knew what the rumor mill was. I knew people who were implicated in it. I didn’t come forward with that information,” the 53-year-old explained at an event the day after the story broke.
However, Sherill later appeared to change her story, revealing that she spoke to academy investigators and “told them what I knew” — raising questions about what she revealed and why she was penalized.
Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli has repeatedly called for Sherrill to approve the release of her disciplinary records, only for the Democrat to repeatedly beg off — even telling the Philadelphia Inquirer editorial board in a sitdown earlier this month that she was “not even sure what that would look like.”
“This was a big thing that took place at the school, and so there’s hundreds of files and hundreds of interviews and stuff like that,” she argued.
Polls show Sherrill and Ciattarelli in a tight race to replace term-limited Democrat Phil Murphy as governor. No Republican has won a Garden State gubernatorial election since Chris Christie won a second term in 2013.
On Thursday’s podcast, Fulop revealed to Cruz that he had not spoken to Sherrill since the Democratic primary, though he had received a call from Ciattarelli.
“I think it speaks to the fact that he is very, very effective on relationships in retail politics,” Fulop said, later adding that “it is the responsibility always, of the stronger to reach out to the weaker. She is the standard-bearer.
“I do what I’m asked to do, which is nothing. And so I’m okay with that.”
The outgoing mayor also resurrected one of his critiques of the congresswoman from the campaign, saying: “If you’re light on policy and can’t create a clear vision, you can have headwinds, and that became true.”
“If you’re being fair, you would say that if Trump wasn’t in the White House, Ciattarelli would be up by 12 points,” he continued. “The best asset Democrats have today is really Trump.”
The Post reached out to Sherrill’s campaign for comment.
