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Culprit in Bridge Scandal Says He Was ‘Surprised’ by Lane Closings’ Timing Witness Details Origins of Bridge Plot and Links Scheme to Christie Aides
(about 4 hours later)
NEWARK — Even David Wildstein, the confessed mastermind of the lane closings near the George Washington Bridge, was taken aback by the blunt email he received at 7:34 a.m. on Aug. 13, 2013. NEWARK — David Wildstein was in the operations center of the George Washington Bridge one morning in March 2011 for a discussion about the number of toll collectors when he noticed there were three lanes leading to the bridge cordoned off where traffic was moving faster than the others.
“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” read the now-infamous message from Bridget Anne Kelly, a deputy chief of staff to Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. And at that very moment, he had an idea. An awful, wonderful idea.
Mr. Wildstein understood what Ms. Kelly meant — the logjam was intended to punish Mayor Mark Sokolich of Fort Lee, the borough on the New Jersey side of the bridge. But the timing of her note seemed strange. He could create a traffic jam that would not soon be forgotten.
“I remember thinking I was a little surprised it was this late for the point of leverage on Mayor Sokolich to be exercised,” Mr. Wildstein testified on Monday in United States District Court here. On Monday, for the first time in federal court here, Mr. Wildstein explained the origins of the lane closings at the bridge in 2013, a scandal that would help to sink the presidential ambitions of Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.
Even as details of the plan to shut down access lanes to the bridge have come into focus through the trial of two top officials in the Christie administration, the chronology of the scheme remains somewhat mysterious. It was about two months earlier, Mr. Wildstein said, that Christie officials learned that Mr. Sokolich, a Democrat, was “no longer on the favored mayor list” after declining to endorse Mr. Christie, a Republican, in his 2013 re-election campaign. Now, it was clear they were looking to exact some retribution. He also said Mr. Christie’s former campaign manager, one of the governor’s closest confidants and now a top adviser to Donald J. Trump, knew about the scheme to close the lanes before it occurred and that the plan was meant as political retribution.
“She told me the reason was to send Mayor Sokolich a message,” said Mr. Wildstein, a former top official at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the bridge. “The indication was that Mayor Sokolich needed to fully understand that life would be more difficult for him in the second Christie term than it had been in the first.” The bridge manager explained to Mr. Wildstein that the lanes were used to ease congestion from traffic flowing though the town of Fort Lee. They were the result of a deal between a long-ago mayor of the town and a former governor of New Jersey.
Still, regardless of what prompted Ms. Kelly’s email or its timing, Mr. Wildstein began hatching the plot with unquestioning acceptance. He devised a fake traffic study that could serve as a cover, scrapped any sort of notification and agreed to respond to any pleas from Fort Lee officials with “radio silence.” In order to maximize the severity of the traffic, Mr. Wildstein said he agreed with Bill Baroni, his boss at the Port Authority, and Ms. Kelly to close the lanes on Sept. 9, the first day of the school year in Fort Lee. Mr. Wildstein quickly recognized that the lanes could be a point of leverage for Mr. Christie, who had been wooing the mayor of Fort Lee to endorse his re-election in 2013.
“The purpose was to create as big a traffic jam as possible,” said Mr. Wildstein, who has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from his role in the scheme. If the lanes were closed, Mr. Wildstein realized, “traffic would back up in Fort Lee.”
Though both the defense and prosecution have asserted that Mr. Christie knew of the plan as it was unfolding, Mr. Wildstein said he was unsure if Ms. Kelly had gotten approval from above. It would be two more years before Mr. Wildstein, a self-described “bad cop” for Mr. Christie at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the bridge, carried out the plot to close two of the three lanes, creating gridlock in the town for four days.
“I never asked her to justify to me how she came about that decision,” he said. In between, Mr. Wildstein testified, he told Bill Baroni, his boss and Mr. Christie’s top staff appointee at the Port Authority, about the idea. He told Mr. Christie’s deputy chief of staff, Bill Stepien, who was keeping track of endorsements and would go on to run Mr. Christie’s re-election campaign. He told Bridget Anne Kelly, who replaced Mr. Stepien in Mr. Christie’s office, and is now on trial with Mr. Baroni on charges that they conspired to close the lanes to punish the mayor for not endorsing Mr. Christie, and then covered it up.
And when Mr. Wildstein, Ms. Kelly and Mr. Baroni had finally decided to act on the plot and had concocted a story that it had to be done as part of traffic study, Mr. Wildstein testified that he also told a Port Authority commissioner who was seen as “a member of the Christie team,” who “understood” the need to hurt the mayor.
Mr. Wildstein, the admitted mastermind of the plot who has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from his role in the scheme, is the prosecution’s star witness. His testimony offered the first description of how the bridge scheme was formed and how it escalated from a mayor refusing to endorse Mr. Christie to others deciding that the best way to exact payback was to create a catastrophic traffic jam that would lock commuters, school buses, and emergency vehicles in traffic for hours.
Mr. Wildstein testified that he told Mr. Baroni and Mr. Stepien in March 2011 that the lanes could be used to pressure the mayor.
“My relationship with Mr. Stepien was that he expected me to give him information that would help him secure endorsements,” Mr. Wildstein said. Mr. Christie’s office was seeking endorsements from those they called “target” Democratic mayors to help the governor, a Republican, win a broad re-election victory that would propel him to the front of the pack of Republican presidential contenders for 2016.
The mayor, Mark Sokolich, still had a “good relationship” with Mr. Christie in 2011, Mr. Wildstein testified.
The governor and his staff had signaled to him and Mr. Baroni that they wanted the Port Authority to be part of the campaign to woo him for an endorsement. And Mr. Sokolich continued to receive gifts from the Port Authority with the direction and approval of the governor’s office, Mr. Wildstein said.
In March 2013, Mr. Wildstein received an email from Mr. Stepien, indicating that Mr. Sokolich had been asked to endorse Mr. Christie, but was a “no-go for now.”
But they still held out hope for him. Mr. Christie’s office wanted to see what happened after that year’s primary elections.
Just after the June primary, Mr. Sokolich fell out of favor. The governor’s office instructed the Port Authority to ignore Mr. Sokolich’s requests for money and help.
“Mayor Sokolich was no longer on the favored mayors list, as it was explained to me,” Mr. Wildstein said.
“Ms. Kelly wasn’t happy that Mayor Sokolich was not coming on board,” he said, at a time when many other Democratic mayors and officials already had. He reminded her that the Port Authority could “close down those Fort Lee lanes as pressure on Mayor Sokolich,” he said. “I left it open-ended, and if it was needed, to let me know.”
But Mr. Wildstein said he was taken aback when Ms. Kelly’s blunt email arrived at 7:34 a.m. on Aug. 13: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”
“I remember thinking that I was a little surprised it was this late that the point of leverage with Mayor Sokolich would be exercised,” he said.
Still, he understood what she meant. “She told me the reason was to send Mayor Sokolich a message,” Mr. Wildstein said. “The indication was that Mayor Sokolich needed to fully understand that life would be more difficult for him in the second Christie term than it had been in the first.”
Lee Cortes, an assistant United States attorney, asked Mr. Wildstein if he had asked Ms. Kelly “what specifically prompted her” to send the email.
“I did not,” Mr. Wildstein replied. “I did not question senior officials in the office of the governor.”
He called Mr. Baroni to tell him that the plan was on. He also called Mr. Stepien, he said, who “asked what story we were going to use.”
“I explained that I was going to use the cover story of a traffic study,” he said. But Mr. Stepien, now running Mr. Christie’s campaign, “specifically asked me not to come to him on Port Authority issues.”
“I needed to work through Ms. Kelly,” Mr. Wildstein said.
In a statement on Monday, Mr. Stepien’s lawyer, Kevin Marino, called Mr. Wildstein’s testimony “sad and self-serving,” noting that his client was never charged in the case. “Despite what Mr. Wildstein apparently feels compelled to say now, Mr. Stepien had no role in planning, approving or concealing his ill-advised scheme,” Mr. Marino said.
Mr. Wildstein told Mr. Baroni that they would not tell local officials, or anyone at the Port Authority, about their plan for punishment. Any calls to complain about traffic would be directed to Mr. Baroni, he said, who would not call anyone back. As they often did, they came up with shorthand, calling this treatment “radio silence.”
It was Mr. Baroni’s idea, he said, to wait until the first day of school, for maximum impact.
And they had originally planned to close down all three access lanes from Fort Lee to the bridge, Mr. Wildstein said. But the chief traffic engineer of the Port Authority, whom Mr. Wildstein had asked to come up with a plan for a “traffic study,” warned that without at least one lane open, cars might be sideswiped.
So Mr. Wildstein scaled back just a bit, closing two lanes instead of three.