RALEIGH, N.C. (WPTF) – Republican lieutenant governor and gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson has hired a Virginia law firm to challenge a recent report alleging he made lewd and offensive comments on a porn website more than a decade ago.

Robinson has engaged Binnall Law Group, based out of Alexandria, Virginia, “to leave no stone unturned” in investigating a CNN report that alleged Robinson once called himself “a Black Nazi” and slammed the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as “worse than a maggot.” The report, which Robinson has denied, was also published as several top campaign staffers resigned. However, Robinson vowed to remain in the race and defend himself.

“As I’ve said from the beginning, the claims from CNN are salacious lies,” Robinson said in a statement. “I will not let these attacks distract us from sharing a better future for our state, and I’m glad to be able to bring Jesse Binnall and his team on board to investigate where and how these false smears originated.”

The decision was announced shortly after U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) called on Robinson to put forth facts in a lawsuit to discredit the CNN report by Friday or else the Republican party “needs to move on.”  

“We’ve got an election that’s 40 days away,” Tillis told CNN on Tuesday. “We’ve got to move on and focus on President Trump’s success in North Carolina, legislative races, the council of state races – all the other races I’m focused on in North Carolina.”

Other Republicans like former gubernatorial candidate Bill Graham weren’t entirely surprised by the recent reports on Robinson. Shortly after the primary election in March, Graham declined to endorse Robinson and called him an “unelectable candidate” that put all Republicans at risk – from federal races all the way down to local seats.

“I was worried that president trump was in jeopardy in his reelect [campaign] because of the again the endorsement and the attention that the extremist rhetoric that Robinson had invoked in the primary was going to get us all in trouble, including the President,” Graham noted. “Unfortunately, that turned out to be the case.”

Robinson’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tillis or Graham’s remarks.