Christie’s Apology for the Sins of His Aides and Appointees Leaves Out His Own
Jim Dwyer
January 9, 2014
nytimes.com
Another 900 pages of documents on the George Washington Bridge Tollgate-Gate are due to be published as soon as Friday, and early word is what they lack in punchiness — after all, what could top “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee”? — they make up for in venom.
In particular, Gov. Chris Christie’s close friend, David Samson, the chairman of the Port Authority, is quoted complaining in foul language about another official whom he believed was leaking to a newspaper.
And the documents are also said to show people in the governor’s office helping an ally at the Port Authority figure out how to pretend that the purposeful creation of traffic jams was something other than political retribution.
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Video: Christie’s News Conference - JAN. 9, 2014
This is a bit off-topic, but the Super Bowl is going to be played in New Jersey next month, and the official New York-New Jersey Super Bowl webpage features a very handsome drawing of the George Washington Bridge itself, with advice on best routes to the game. (Alas, it does not warn people away from the Fort Lee approaches to the bridge.)
One wonders: Who will be seated with Governor Christie at the stadium in the Meadowlands? Mr. Samson, whose law firm represents Triple Five, which is developing shopping malls at the Meadowlands?
But enough about the future.
The governor held a news conference on Thursday to offer an extended act of contrition, though it was entirely for the sins of others. In nearly two hours, Mr. Christie never got around to mentioning any of his own.
Instead, as he exfoliated — he was blindsided, he was going through the stages of grief, how could he be betrayed like this, and on and on like that — he casually dropped a few loopholes into his spiel.
Such as, sure, it seemed like closing the traffic lanes at the George Washington Bridge was intended to create misery for the “little Serbian” (which is how one of the governor’s cronies referred in an email to the mayor of Fort Lee, who is actually of Croatian ancestry; the Christie administration apparently is the Gang that Couldn’t Slur Straight).
But maybe, Mr. Christie said, there really was a legitimate traffic study underway.
“And let’s be fair,” Governor Christie said. “There are times when there have been investigations around here that led to nothing and have had no basis.”
Well, yes, that’s a topic he knows about.
For instance, Mr. Christie, when he was the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey, practically used buckshot to indict Democrats; a number of those cases later fizzled out.
And then there was the amazing subpoena issued by Mr. Christie’s office at the height of the 2006 United States Senate race, when Bob Menendez, a Democrat, was running against Thomas H. Kean Jr., a Republican. Mr. Christie got his start in politics by working for Mr. Kean’s father.
In August 2006, Mr. Christie demanded records from a nonprofit agency in Union City, N.J., that rented space in a property owned by Mr. Menendez, then a member of the House of Representatives. The arrangement had ended three years earlier, and had been cleared in advance by the House ethics committee.
Nevertheless, word of the subpoena was leaked out by the federal prosecutors, and Mr. Christie’s investigation was used by Mr. Kean throughout the campaign to hammer at Mr. Menendez.
In time, the case was transferred to federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania, who closed the matter without bringing any charges.
Mr. Christie must be hoping that the various investigations into the abuse of authority at the bridge will come to the same end. But it may be a while. Or it may be never.
In the meantime, he filibustered through a news conference about the events, mentioning a number of times where he was when he learned about the damning emails issued from his aides (just finished working out; the trainer had just left) and that he really did not know the political crony who went to his high school and who organized the traffic bomb on Fort Lee (I was the school president, and I was an athlete, and I don’t know what circles he was in).
So why, he was asked, did his close allies think it was O.K. to pull a stunt like this?
“There’s a lot of soul searching that goes on around this,” Mr. Christie said.
Happy hunting.
Email: dwyer@nytimes.com
Twitter: @jimdwyernyt
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