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With the final days closing in on an especially messy New Jersey gubernatorial election, Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli’s campaign slammed his Democratic opponent, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, for pushing a narrative that he “killed tens of thousands of people.”
Sherrill accused Ciattarelli of being responsible for printing “propaganda” via the medical publishing company he founded that downplayed the dangers of opioids and of designing an app to help people access dangerous drugs. She made the claims during a gubernatorial debate on Oct. 8 and doubled down during a press conference on opioid addiction on Monday.
“Jack made millions, the opioid companies made billions, and thousands of New Jerseyans were dying,” Sherrill said at the press conference.
Chris Russell, a Ciattarelli campaign strategist, told Fox News that if Sherrill “had any decency, she would retract her slanderous comments and apologize.”
“Whether it’s tripling her net worth in Congress and hiding details of her stock trades or concealing the true extent of her role in the Naval Academy cheating scandal, Mikie Sherrill is a proven liar and lawbreaker whose desperation is showing,” said Russell.
“Her reckless and defamatory claim that Jack ‘killed tens of thousands of people, including children,’ has been roundly criticized by members of the press, legal scholars and people in both parties,” he added.
“The truth is that Jack Ciattarelli’s medical publishing company helped to create an online tool which allowed a small group of chronic pain sufferers to educate themselves on treatment options and better advocate for their own healthcare choices when meeting with their medical professionals,” explained Russell.
In response, Sean Higgins, a campaign spokesperson for Sherrill, told Fox News Digital that “after years of hiding his role fueling the opioid epidemic, Jack Ciattarelli is finally admitting to being paid by an opioid company to create an app to coach patients to get a Hydrocodone prescription, all at a time when the opioid crisis was raging and killing New Jerseyans.”
“He made millions off of New Jerseyans’ pain and suffering and clearly cannot be trusted as governor,” said Higgins.
Ciattarelli has threatened to sue Sherrill for defamation if she does not stop raising these accusations.
Despite this, Sherrill was adamant about the accusations on Monday.
She pushed back on the threat of lawsuits over the accusations, saying, “I’m dumbfounded that this perennial candidate, who has run now for three elections, saying that he’s a small businessman, the minute we start to talk about that small business, he wants to shut it. He wants his lawyers to shut it down. I mean, that’s ridiculous to me.”
“I think we’ve laid out the case that Jack is … in league with these opioid companies,” said Sherrill.
Pressed to clarify whether she was asserting that Ciattarelli killed tens of thousands of New Jerseyans, Sherrill answered, “Yes. Look, I think he is right there with the people that, again, paid billions of dollars. So, I think that the line is pretty clear.”
For his part, Ciattarelli shot back against Sherrill at a campaign rally on Monday, saying, “her entire campaign is based on a stack of lies about me [and] her disdain for the president.”
He said that for the remainder of the campaign he will be pivoting to discussing his day one plan as governor, saying he will immediately issue an executive order banning sanctuary jurisdictions for illegal immigrants, bringing state workers back to work in-person, appointing a state attorney general “who supports both police and parents,” fixing the public education system and eliminating green energy initiatives in New Jersey.
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