(The Hill) The campaign of New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Mikie Sherrill criticized the Trump administration on Thursday for releasing her military records, which included sensitive personal information, to an ally of her gubernatorial opponent.

“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 distributed and weaponized by Jack Ciattarelli,” Sherrill campaign spokesperson Sean Higgins said in a statement. “This is a breathtaking, disturbing leak that must be thoroughly investigated.”

Grace McCaffrey, the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) acting director of congressional affairs, confirmed in a statement that its National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) released Sherrill’s military records to Jack Ciattarelli’s ally, Nicholas De Gregorio, “in error.”

De Gregorio made a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to NPRC, and the “technician that responded to the request did not follow NPRC’s standard operating procedures,” McCaffrey said.  

“The technician should have extracted and released from the record only FOIA-releasable information. The technician should NOT have released the entire record,” she added.

She noted that officials found out about the data breach on Monday, and NARA reached out to Sherrill’s congressional office to remedy the situation. 

CBS News was the first to report about Sherrill’s largely unredacted military record breach, which the news outlet noted included her Social Security number, performance evaluation and addresses for her and her parents, among other sensitive details.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said he supported a probe into how the military record got leaked and called the New Jersey congresswoman “a patriot and a hero.”

“It’s outrageous that Donald Trump and his administration, and political hacks connected to them, continue to violate the law,” Jeffries said. “And they will be held accountable. The statute of limitations I remind all of the sycophants out there is five years. This Justice Department will be long gone before the statute of limitations expires.”  

The Hill has reached out to Ciattarelli’s campaign for comment.

Sherrill is running against the former New Jersey assemblyman to replace term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy (D), with a recent poll from Emerson College Polling, PIX11 and The Hill showing the two tied at 43 percent support each. 

CBS News noted that some Republicans had been looking into a 1994 cheating scandal at the Navy Academy, as well as Sherrill’s military record. Both CBS News and the New Jersey Globe reported that Sherrill did not walk at her commencement ceremony, with Sherrill attributing that to not turning in her classmates who cheated.

“Jack Ciattarelli continues to try and use any avenue he can to execute the MAGA playbook of smearing military service. Now, his latest attempt is to go after a 30-year-old widely reported incident when I was an undergraduate at the Naval Academy,” Sherrill said in a statement.

“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 continued. “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.”

But Ciattarelli’s campaign used the controversy to attack the New Jersey congresswoman, with campaign manager Eric Arpert telling the New Jersey Globe “the people of New Jersey deserve complete and total transparency.”

“Today’s admission by Congresswoman Sherrill that she was implicated in, and punished for, her involvement in the largest cheating and honor code scandal in the history of the United States Navy is both stunning and deeply disturbing.”