Rep. Scott Garrett's (R., N.J.) reelection campaign sent a cease and desist letter Thursday to the New Jersey Attorney General and the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey after his Democratic opponent, Josh Gottheimer, created false government documents for a campaign ad.
Garrett represents the fifth congressional district of New Jersey and is being challenged by Gottheimer, a former Bill Clinton speechwriter who has been active in Democratic politics for years.
The letter accuses the Gottheimer campaign of breaking federal laws for falsifying documents that were then used in a campaign ad against Garrett. The ad in question incorrectly alleges that Garrett is under investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics for bribery and corruption and includes a shot of a supposed letter from the government office showing the allegation.
A watchdog group did request last year that the Office of Congressional Ethics investigate whether Garrett accepted improper campaign donations. Garrett has said the ethics office looked into the matter and found no reason to pursue an investigation, adding that no document exists like the one in the ad.
The letter charges that the Gottheimer campaign "deliberately and fraudulently altered the original letter in order to mislead the public and the press to falsely believe that the letter had come from the Office of Congressional Ethics."
When the allegations first arose, the Gottheimer campaign initially admitted it had manipulated the image in question. The campaign then walked back that claim, saying it had not manipulated the document but instead "the image used in the ad was a visual representation of what office the complaint was filed to," the New Jersey Star Ledger reported.
Garrett and his campaign have strongly pushed back against the ad and its allegations. Garrett said at a press conference on Wednesday that he is not under investigation and accused Gottheimer of creating a false document to score political points.
"It turns out that in Clinton crony boot camp, they not only teach how to destroy government documents, they teach how to forge them as well," Sarah Neibart, Garrett's campaign manager, said in a statement to the Washington Free Beacon.
"Clinton protégé Josh Gottheimer's forgery of government documents is a clear violation of state and federal law, and we expect that the New Jersey Attorney General and U.S. Attorney General will begin an immediate investigation into these actions," she added.
The Garrett campaign has also called on television stations to pull the misleading ad from their airwaves.
Garrett and Gottheimer have been in one of the most contentious House races this cycle, which has recently been moved to a "Toss Up" categorization by the Cook Political Report.