Christie's Bridgegate scandal is going to continue to be producing some riveting testimony and headlines over the next few weeks. Can you say,"unindicted co-conspirator".
Port Authority Chief Testifies Christie Ally Pressured Him to Reclose Lanes to Bridge
By KATE ZERNIKE and NOAH REMNICKSEPT. 21, 2016
nytimes.com
NEWARK — On the morning that Patrick J. Foye ordered the reversal of the mysterious lane closings near the George Washington Bridge in September 2013, Bill Baroni appeared in his office, visibly on edge.
Mr. Baroni, Gov. Chris Christie’s top appointee at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the bridge, beseeched Mr. Foye, the agency’s executive director, to reclose the lanes. He kept pressing even after Mr. Foye reminded him that ambulances had been caught in the gridlock caused by the lane closings — that “someone could have died.”
“He said the issue was important to Trenton,” Mr. Foye recalled on Wednesday during testimony in United States District Court. “I took that to be the governor’s office.”
Later that morning, Mr. Baroni went once more to Mr. Foye’s office and again asked him to close the lanes. “He said it was important to Trenton, and he said Trenton would or might call,” said Mr. Foye, who was appointed to his job by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York. “I took it to mean that the governor of New Jersey would call the governor of New York. I said they should call.”
Mr. Baroni and Bridget Anne Kelly, a former deputy chief of staff to Mr. Christie, a Republican, are on trial on charges that they closed access lanes to the bridge and covered up their actions in what federal prosecutors say was a scheme to punish the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, N.J., for failing to endorse Mr. Christie for re-election.
During their cross-examination of Mr. Foye and the mayor on Wednesday, lawyers for the defendants tried to steer blame above and away from their clients, portraying them as well-meaning pawns in a political game they could not control.
</snip> Rest here: nytimes.com |
