“When you lie like this, you show the people of New Jersey you’re a Trump kind of Republican,” Menendez said. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images Menendez calls Hugin ‘desperate’ and ‘a liar’ after prostitution ad airs

HACKENSACK, N.J. — An angry Sen. Robert Menendez on Wednesday ripped into Republican opponent Bob Hugin, labeling him a “slimeball” and a “liar” for airing a commercial that dredges up old, unsubstantiated allegations that Menendez solicited underage prostitutes in the Dominican Republic.

“Bob Hugin is a desperate man. He’s down in the polls. He’s out of step with the people of New Jersey, and he’s desperate to distract voters from his shameful record,” Menendez (D-N.J.) said at the headquarters of the Bergen County Democratic Organization, where he was surrounded by about 20 Democratic women.


“This deceitful, despicable attack ad tells you everything you need to know about Republican Bob Hugin: That he’s a slimeball, he’s a misogynist and he’s a liar,” Menendez said.

Earlier Wednesday, The Washington Post‘s fact checker gave the Hugin ad four “Pinocchios” — the worst rating it gives.

“There’s nothing new in the ad except for a dark descent into corrosive haze,” fact-checker Sal Rizzo wrote.

The controversial ad comes as polls show Menendez with a smaller lead over Hugin than a Democrat in heavily blue New Jersey would normally expect.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday showed Menendez leading Hugin by 7 points — 51 percent to 44 percent. That lead would evaporate if not for Menendez’s 56 percent to 38 percent lead among women. Hugin has a narrow lead among men.

“You know what this is about? Bob Hugin knows that I have a huge double-digit lead with women in the state of New Jersey,” Menendez said.

The close race is largely the result of Menendez‘s legal and ethical problems.

Late last year, the senator survived a federal corruption trial over allegations he did political favors for his friend and co-defendant, Florida eye doctor Salomon Melgen, in exchange for gifts. The jury deadlocked, with 10 of the 12 members voting in favor of acquittal.

During Wednesday’s news conference, Menendez repeatedly tied Hugin to President Donald Trump, for whom the Republican served as a delegate at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Hugin also donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to help elect Trump, who late in the 2016 election was caught on tape boasting of groping women.

“When you lie like this, you show the people of New Jersey you’re a Trump kind of Republican,” Menendez said.

The senator also brought up Hugin’s fight against admitting women to the Tiger Inn — an eating club Hugin belonged to when he was a student at Princeton University. Hugin continued the fight on behalf of the organization well into the 1990s, when he was in his 30s, accusing the woman who ultimately won the case of “politically correct fascism.”

Over the summer, Hugin said he has since changed his mind on the issue.

The Hugin ad is based on a 2015 brief by federal prosecutors that claimed the prostitution allegations against Menendez were “specific” and “corroborated,“ based on an FBI agent’s affidavit.

However, no alleged underage prostitutes ever came forward to meet with the FBI. Their allegations were forwarded to the FBI by an anonymous tipster who went by the name “Pete Williams” — a reference to former New Jersey Sen. Harrison “Pete” Williams, who was forced from office after a corruption conviction.

Other women whose stories “Pete Williams“ shopped to media outlets later recanted their accusations and told Dominican authorities they were paid to lie. Like the women, “Pete Williams“ refused to come forward and meet with FBI agents, who did not know the identity of any of the alleged prostitutes.

The corroboration the FBI referred to in the brief is based on one of the alleged prostitutes saying she had sex with Menendez on several dates that largely lined up with times Menendez had been in the Dominican Republic.

The only two women with whom the FBI did meet both denied they were prostitutes or that they saw Menendez with prostitutes.

Elizabeth Meyer, founder of the Women’s March of New Jersey, called the Hugin ad a “bomb that is filled with nothing but innuendo and old, unsubstantiated breadcrumbs” and part of the “Trump playbook.”

“Bob Hugin isn’t a different kind of Republican. He’s proving that he’s an apprentice,” Meyer said.

Meyer acknowledged that some might have trouble supporting the senator — reflected in the fact that 52 percent of voters told Quinnipiac they have an unfavorable view of him — but said his record on abortion rights, health care and equal pay legislation makes him worthy of reelection.

“There are two candidates in this race who can win it: Senator Menendez and Bob Hugin,” Meyer said. “It may not be the choice that some of you like or disagree with, but it is the choice that we have.”

About a dozen Hugin supporters congregated outside the building where Wednesday’s news conference was held. Many carried signs, one of which called Menendez a “hypocrite,” and some handed out copies of the FBI document.

Megan Piwowar, a spokeswoman for the Hugin campaign, defended the Republican’s latest ad.

“Senator Menendez is a hypocrite and a liar,” she said in an email. “While Menendez may want citizens of NJ to forget that the FBI had very specific allegations he had sex with underage women in the Dominican, our ad reminds them exactly what kind of a person they have in Bob Menendez. New Jersey voters have a very clear choice: Do you believe the denials of corrupt, career politician Bob Menendez and convicted felon Salomon Melgen, or do you believe the FBI and the Obama Justice Department?“