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Chris Christie fires top aide over 'unacceptable' bridge lane closure Chris Christie fires top aide over 'unacceptable' bridge lane closure
(35 minutes later)
Chris Christie, the scandal-hit governor of New Jersey, fired the aide at the heart of a conspiracy to cause traffic chaos near a town controlled by a political opponent on Wednesday, as the state's US attorney opened a federal investigation. Chris Christie, the scandal-hit governor of New Jersey, embarked upon a muscular attempt to save his shattered reputation on Thursday, firing the aide at the heart of a conspiracy to cause traffic chaos near a town controlled by a political opponent on Wednesday, and issuing profuse and repeated apologies,.
At a press conference in Trenton, New Jersey, Christie issued a humbling apology. "I am embarrassed and humiliated by the conduct of some of the people on my team," he said. "There is no doubt in my mind that the conduct they exhibited is completely unacceptable and showed a lack of respect for the appropriate role of government and the people we are trusted to serve". In a 115-minute press conference from the governor’s office in Trenton, New Jersey, Christie said a top aide had lied to him about her involvement in the now notorious closure of traffic lanes on the George Washington Bridge in September. He also said he had terminated his association with a senior Republican who had led his campaign for re-election in November.
Christie confirmed he had fired Bridget Kelly, his deputy chief of staff, whom he said had lied to him about the decision to close the lanes on the approach to the George Washington bridge, which links New Jersey with New York. Apologising to the people of New Jersey, and specifically to residents of Fort Lee, the small town that sits under the bridge and that was thrown in chaos over four days of lane closures, he said he was “embarrassed and humiliated by the conduct of some of the people on my team”. Email exchanges between members of his inner circle, made public on Wednesday, had revealed behaviour he described as “stupid” and “deceitful”.
At the news conference, he said he had no knowledge of the plot to manipulate the traffic flow at the bridge, which resulted in four days of chaos in the lanes that led to the town of Fort Lee, whose Democratic mayor did not endorse Christie, a Republican, during his run for re-election as governor. He told reporters: “I am heartbroken that someone I allowed in my inner circle for last five years betrayed my trust. I would never have come out four weeks ago and made a joke about these lane closures had I known that anyone in my staff had been so stupid to have anything to do with this and so deceitful,” he said, referring to his quip on 2 December that he had personally laid out the traffic cones.
"I had no knowledge or involvement in this issue, in its planning or its execution, and I am stunned by the abject stupidity that was shown here. Regardless of what the facts uncover, this was handled in a callous and indifferent way," Christie said. Before the lane closures were ordered, Sokolich had declined to endorse Christie for re-election, incurring the spite of members of the governor’s inner team. The governor said he would go to Fort Lee on Thursday afternoon and apologise face-to-face to its mayor, Mark Sokolich, and to its residents. A piece of political theatre was in prospect: Sokolich said he would not meet the governor, who said he would go to the town anyway.
Emails published this week revealed direct communication between Kelly and a top executive appointed by Christie to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a bi-state organisation that 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. In his remarks, Christie tried to lance the political boil that now threatens to poison his political future. The most caustic aspect of the swelling scandal is the impression left that the governor, who has been tipped as a frontrunner in the 2016 race for Republican presidential candidate, was a partisan bully.
“Got it,” replied Wildstein, who was later disclosed to have been the official who ordered the lane closures. “I am who I am, but I am not a bully,” he stated, trying to address that mounting criticism in trademark head-on fashion. Later, he went back on the theme, saying: “I have a very blunt direct personality and I understand why some people characterise that as bullying. But it’s not that.”
Four days of lane closures caused havoc in Fort Lee, a New Jersey town of 35,000 that sits under the George Washington, which is 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. Though Christie said on several occasions that he accepted full responsibility for the mistakes committed by his team as chief executive of this state, implicit in his statement was the message that he himself was blameless of any wrongdoing. At most, he accepted that he might have been “naive” to have trusted some of his senior people.
The revelations thrust a local transportation issue into a national scandal, raising questions about the ambitious governor's leadership on the eve of a second term designed to jumpstart his road to the White House. Christie insisted repeatedly that he had no knowledge of the involvement of his top advisers in the decision to close the lanes, thus causing a major traffic snarl up in Fort Lee that delayed emergency vehicles and might even be implicated in the death of a 91-year-old woma . The first he learned that any members of his staff had been involved had been at 8.50am on Wednesday when news of the emails broke. At 9am on Thursday, he said, he dismissed Bridget Kelly, one of his three deputy chiefs of staff.
The US attorney in New Jersey, Paul Fishman, said he was "reviewing the matter to determine whether a federal law was implicated." The state legislature is also investigating. Christie pulled no punches in his portrayal of Kelly, who was revealed in the emails to be an instigator of the lane closures. In an email to a senior member of the Port Authority that controls the bridge, she wrote: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee”. He said Kelly’s emails had made clear she had lied to him, and that she had acted towards the people of Fort Lee in a “completely callous and indifferent way”.
Christie said he would go to Fort Lee later on Thursday to apologise to mayor Sokolich. Asked whether he had asked Kelly to explain her actions, he said he had not talked to her, adding: “Frankly, I’m not interested in any explanation at this point.”
Kelly has not commented, and Christie said he had not spoken to her since the emails were released. The governor also said that he had forced Bill Stepien, his re-election campaign manager, to withdraw as chairman of the New Jersey Republican party and to stand down as a consultant to the Republican governors association, which Christie leads. in the emails called the Fort Lee mayor “an idiot”. The move makes Stepien the most high-profile casualty so far of what has been dubbed the “BridgeGate” affair, and brings the total number of Christie’s people forced to resign in the wake of it to four.
Besides firing Kelly, the governor asked a second trusted aide, former campaign manager Bill Stepien, to withdraw from a bid to become the next chairman of the New Jersey Republican party. He said he was disturbed by the "callous indifference" displayed by Stepien in the emails released Wednesday. In addressing the media so fulsomely – inviting sarcastic tweets that he was trying to filibuster his way out of the crisis – Christie was gambling that his characteristic combination of straight talk and “man-on-the-street” bluster would see him through the scandal. But he remains in deep political water, especially with regard to his presidential ambitions.
Beyond the specifics of the lane closures, critics suggest the incident reflects a darker side of Christie's brand of politics that contradicts the image he'd like to project as he eyes the presidency. Already, the vultures are circling. The Democratic party, both in New Jersey and nationally, have run with the bullying theme. The Republican right, which harbours doubts over whether Christie is a true conservative, has also pounced, with influential figures such as the talk-show host Rush Limbaugh saying the episode showed that he engaged in political “payback”.
The governor repeatedly sidestepped criticism that he bullied adversaries in an overwhelming re-election victory in November. Christie is particularly vunlerable to any further eeking out of information about “BridgeGate” or any other evidence that he or his team tried to strong-arm other politicians in the state. Earlier this week, the mayor of Jersey City, Steven Fulop, complained  that the governor’s office had tried to disrupt his plans for pension reform in retribution for his refusal to endorse Christie last year.
"I am not a bully," he said. Christie denied any vendetta against Fulop, but said he was unable to assure the public that there were no more revelations concerning the scandal to come. He said that the last 36 hours had taught him that he needed to be “much more circumspect” in what he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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