Daijiworld Media Network – New Jersey
New Jersey, Sep 26: Former Navy helicopter pilot and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mikie Sherrill faced a unique setback decades ago when she was barred from participating in her 1994 U.S. Naval Academy graduation ceremony, resurfacing amid the high-stakes New Jersey election. Sherrill was linked to a major cheating scandal involving midshipmen but maintained that her exclusion was due to her refusal to implicate classmates. “I didn’t turn in some of my classmates, so I didn’t walk, but graduated and was commissioned as an officer in the US Navy, serving for nearly ten years with distinction,” Sherrill said. Despite the incident, her name appears in the Naval Academy’s 1994 yearbook.
The scandal, which erupted in 1992, involved 130 midshipmen accused of sharing answers to an electrical engineering exam. Over two dozen were expelled, and the controversy prompted a congressional inquiry and the resignation of Rear Adm. Thomas Lynch, the Academy’s superintendent at the time.
The issue gained renewed attention as Sherrill faces a tight race against Republican Jack Ciattarelli. A recent Emerson College/PIX11/The Hill survey shows the two candidates tied at 43%, a shift from earlier polls where Sherrill held a significant lead. Political tensions heightened after the National Archives admitted to improperly releasing Sherrill’s unredacted military records, including her Social Security number, to Nicholas De Gregorio, an ally of Ciattarelli, which were later reported by CBS News.
Sherrill’s campaign condemned the leak. Communications director Sean Higgins said, “The Trump administration blatantly violated federal law by releasing Mikie Sherrill’s unredacted personal military records to an agent of the Ciattarelli campaign — which were then weaponized politically.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called for a criminal investigation, emphasizing Sherrill’s service and patriotism. Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin also criticized the move, calling it “another example of illegally weaponizing the federal government for political purposes.”
Sherrill served in the Navy from 1994 to 2003, later becoming a prosecutor. She received the Achievement Medal in 1991 for saving the life of a Naval Academy classmate, highlighting her distinguished military career despite the early controversy.