FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                   

October 17, 2018

NYT Fact Checks Bob Hugin’s Smear Campaign

“The most recent ad from Bob Hugin, Robert Menendez’s Republican rival in the New Jersey race, focuses on unproven allegations by an anonymous tipster.”

“… the ad attempts to paint an overall unproven accusation as supported by federal law enforcement, when that is simply not the case.”

New Brunswick, NJ – Adding to a slew of blistering criticism by major media outlets of Bob Hugin’s smear campaign against Senator Bob Menendez, the New York Times today published its own fact-check of the former drug company CEO’s latest campaign ad which features anonymous, baseless allegations that the Times notes, “has never been proven.”

According to the New York Times fact-checker:

• “…the ad attempts to paint an overall unproven accusation as supported by federal law enforcement, when that is simply not the case.”

• “[The false allegations] came from an anonymous tipster whose identity has never been publicly revealed.”

• “Yet a new ad from Mr. Hugin repeats the allegations as uncontested facts [and]…  takes liberties with the unsubstantiated allegations.”

• “Mr. Menendez has vehemently denied the allegations. During an initial investigation, two women who had told The Daily Caller, a conservative website, in a video that Mr. Menendez had paid them for sex while in the Dominican Republic later recanted their allegations, claiming they had been paid to make the accusations.

• According to the Times, the FBI agent’s affidavit Hugin uses as “evidence” did not find evidence to support the tipster’s claims that Menendez slept with underage sex workers.  Rather, the women Mr. Sheehy does get in touch with offer outright denials:

• “Y.F.” denied that she had ever worked as a prostitute. She also said that she never saw Dr. Melgen or Senator Menendez in the company of any prostitutes or underage females.  Buchyk denied, however, that she had ever worked as a prostitute, and she said that she never saw Dr. Melgen or Senator Menendez in the company of either prostitutes or underage females.

###