SCOOP: Democrats paid to illegally obtain Rep. Don Bacon's spotless military record. He explains why a release from a Marco Rubio-led agency on a Democrat is a "valid target"

Rep. Don Bacon tells the Reporter that the leak of a Democratic veteran's near-total military record is problematic. It's unclear if that same Democrat said the same in 2022 to defend Bacon.

In 2022, House Democrats paid a Democratic Party researcher who “inappropriately” accessed military records of several Republican lawmakers and candidates over $100,000. One of the Democrats’ targets, Rep. Don Bacon (R., Neb.), handily won his reelection bid, but several other Republicans targeted by Abraham Payton’s Due Diligence Group weren’t as lucky.

Now, a Democratic lawmaker — Rep. Mikie Sherrill — who is in a dead heat in New Jersey’s gubernatorial race against Republican Jack Ciattarelli had her military records leaked by a branch of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which is helmed by Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio in his minimal free time.

The records leaked by the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) to a political ally of Ciattarelli improperly released some of Sherrill’s personal information, including her Social Security number, her home address, life insurance information, and more — NARA’s spokeswoman, Grace McCaffrey, clarified that “the technician should NOT have released the entire record.”

But Ciattarelli is using other, more valid, findings in his race’s home stretch against Sherrill to argue that she is implicated in the Naval Academy’s 1994 cheating scandal — which Bacon says is fair game.

“In my case I had zero discipline issues in 30 years,” Bacon — who served as a Brigadier General in the Air Force — told the Reporter. “They got nothing to hit me on…I think the cheating scandal is valid target. The military, though, should be more careful on releasing records, and it’s been used against 11 Republicans in past.”

Ciattarelli, fresh off of a well-regarded debate performance against Sherrill, is following Bacon’s advice.

“[The] 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,” Ciattarelli recently said.

“For eight years,” he added, “Mikie Sherrill has built her entire political brand around her time at the Naval Academy and in the Navy, all the while concealing her involvement in the scandal and her punishment.”

While Bacon made it clear that the NARA-helmed disclosure of Sherrill’s near-total military file was inappropriate, it is unclear if Sherrill ever took the Biden administration to task for illegally leaking Bacon’s file in 2022.