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Chris Christie top aide tied to New Jersey lane-closing controversy Chris Christie top aide tied to New Jersey lane-closing controversy
(about 2 hours later)
The governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, was ensnared in a billowing political furore on Wednesday when newly released emails connected one of his top aides to a controversial decision to block traffic on a bridge between the state and New York City, despite the governor previously denying involvement. New Jersey governor Chris Christie was ensnared in a billowing political furore on Wednesday when newly released emails connected one of his top aides to a decision to block lanes on the approach to a busy bridge, causing traffic chaos, apparently in an act of revenge against a political enemy.
The emails (pdf), obtained by the local newspaper The Record, reveal direct communication between Bridget Anne Kelly, a senior staff member in the governor’s office, and a top executive appointed by Christie to the Port Authority, the agency that controls the George Washington Bridge. The emails (pdf), obtained by local newspaper The Record, reveal direct communication between Bridget Anne Kelly, a senior staff member in the governor’s office, and a top executive appointed by Christie to the Port Authority, which has control over the George Washington bridge. “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” Kelly wrote from her private email address to the executive, David Wildstein, on 13 August last year, three weeks before several access lanes to the bridge were closed.
“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” Kelly wrote in an email to the executive, David Wildstein, on 13 August last year, three weeks before several lanes of the bridge were closed. “Got it,” replied Wildstein, who was later disclosed to have been the official who ordered the lane closures.
Four days of lane closures caused havoc in Fort Lee, a town of 35,000 inhabitants that sits under the George Washington bridge, the world’s busiest. The town has a Democratic mayor, Mark Sokolich, who had refused to endorse Christie for re-election as governor in a state-wide election in November. Four days of lane closures caused havoc in Fort Lee, a New Jersey town of 35,000 that sits under the George Washington, which the world’s busiest bridge. The town has a Democratic mayor, Mark Sokolich, who had declined to endorse Christie for re-election as governor in November, raising speculation that the traffic misery had been inflicted as part of a personal vendetta against him.
The email chain takes “Bridgegate”, as the saga has inevitably been dubbed, from the level of a local inconvenience for Christie to a potentially major scandal involving his inner team and questioning his political motivations and judgment. Christie, who is being closely watched as a prime candidate in the Republican presidential run in 2016, has risen to prominence on the back of his reputation for being a straight-talking, no-nonsense politician who fights for every New Jersey voter regardless of their party affiliation.  The email chain includes denigrating references to Sokolich by top Christie aides who call him “Serbia”, though he is in fact Croatian. Bill Stepien, the campaign manager for the governor’s re-election bid, wrote in one email at the height of the bridge dispute: “The mayor is an idiot.”
The suggestion that his top staff might have been actively involved in a vindictive move against a Democratic small-town mayor, causing grief for thousands of New Jersey residents, could be caustic for the governor. New Jersey leans heavily Democratic in federal elections, with Barack Obama winning it by 48% to 41% in 2012. Even more toxic could be evidence that the governor’s office was involved in covering up its involvement in the bridge lane closures. In another incendiary exchange of text messages, Wildstein and an unidentified associate joked about the impact the lane closures had on Fort Lee’s school kids. The disruption trapped school buses in traffic, causing them to arrive late on the first day of the school year, in addition to emergency vehicles being blocked.
Christie has consistently denied that his staff had anything to do with the lane closures and the ensuing traffic snarl up, insisting that the events on the bridge were instigated as part of a traffic study of the flow of vehicles into Fort Lee. Christie has claimed the controversy has all been cooked up by Democrats in the state legislature seeking to gain points. “Is it wrong that I’m smiling,” the associate said, referring to complaints from Sokolich about the impact of the lane closures on school buses. “No,” replied Wildstein.
“I feel badly about the kids. I guess,” said the associate.
“They are the children of Buono voters,” Wildstein said, in an apparent jibe against Democratic families in Fort Lee. Barbara Buono was Christie’s Democratic challenger in the November election, which was held less than two months after that text conversation.
Buono lashed out at Christie on Wednesday hours after the emails and texts surfaced, telling the Daily Beast that the governor “runs a paramilitary operation”. She said that from the start she had been convinced the bridge debacle had been “an act of political retribution”.
The documents, which were first extracted under subpoena by state legislators, takes “Bridgegate”, as the saga has inevitably been dubbed, from the level of a local inconvenience for Christie to a potentially major scandal that calls into doubt his political motivations and judgment. Christie, who has been seen as a frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, has risen to prominence by cultivating a reputation as a straight-talking, no-nonsense politician who fights for every New Jersey voter regardless of their party affiliation.
The suggestion that his top staff might have been actively involved in a vindictive move against a Democratic small-town mayor that caused grief for thousands of New Jersey residents could be toxic for the governor, who is trying to position himself ahead of 2016 as a new-look Republican able to reach across the aisle to Democratic and Independent voters. Even more problematic could be evidence, if any emerges, that the governor’s office took part in a cover-up of its involvement.
Christie has consistently denied that his staff had anything to do with the lane closures and the ensuing traffic snarl up, and insisted that the events on the bridge were instigated as part of a traffic study of the flow of vehicles over the bridge. And he has claimed the controversy has all been cooked up by Democrats in the state legislature seeking to gain points.
Christie has so far attempted to brush off the allegations of political dirty tricks through a characteristic combination of humour and bluster. In a press conference last month, he at first joked that “I moved the cones, actually, unbeknownst to everybody”, and then went on to claim that the Port Authority had carried out a traffic study on the bridge to see whether Fort Lee had an unfair allocation of lanes. “The fact that one town has three lanes dedicated to it, that kind of gets me sauced,” Christie said.
The new batch of emails brings the furore much closer to home, presenting the governor with a crisis that he will struggle to swat away so glibly. Already two heads have rolled: Wildstein resigned on 6 December and was followed soon after by Bill Baroni, Christie’s appointee as deputy director of the Port Authority, who is also copiously referenced in the new email chain.
The new emails also show that the Fort Lee mayor’s desperate cries for help during the four days of the lane closures were coldly rebuffed by Christie’s inner circle. On the first day of the closures, 9 September, Sokolich’s office sent an email to Baroni that pleaded for a phone call on grounds of “urgent matter of public safety in Fort Lee”.
That email was forwarded by Baroni to Wildstein, and in turn to Christie’s top aide, Bridget Kelly. “Did he call him back?” Kelly asks Wildstein.
“Radio silence,” replied Wildstein. “His name comes right after Mayor Fulop”.
Steven Fulop is the Democratic mayor of Jersey City, who has also complained that he was the subject of retaliation by the Christie team after he declined to endorse the governor for re-election.
Sokolich has so far maintained a low public profile over the saga, but the new emails underline the desperate attempts he made to lift the lane closures and his subsequent conviction that he had been a victim of political bullying. On the second day of lane closures he wrote to Baroni: “The bigger problem is getting the kids to school. Help please. It’s maddening.”
A week later, after the lanes had been reopened at the order of New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who shares joint control of the Port Authority with Christie, the Fort Lee mayor sent another email to Baroni. “We should talk. Someone needs to tell me that the recent traffic debacle was not punitive in nature. The last four reporters that contacted me suggest that the people they are speaking with absolutely believe it to be punishment. Try as I may to dispel these rumours I am having a tough time. A private face-to-face would be important to me. Perhaps someone can enlighten me as to the errors of my ways.”
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