Defense lawyers representing two former allies of Governor Christie accused of conspiring to cause massive traffic jams at an entrance to the George Washington Bridge can not have access to the Governor’s cell phone or to electronic devices belonging to top aides in his administration, a federal judge has ruled.
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On Friday, a spokesman for the governor confirmed a report by the New York Times that Christie’s personal lawyer, Christopher A. Wray of King & Spalding, has the phone. A third former Port Authority executive, David Wildstein, has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with prosecutors.
Baroni and Kelly are charged with closing the lanes to create traffic jams in 2013 to punish a Democratic mayor for not endorsing Christie.
The law firm contends it produced all materials required by the US attorney’s office’s subpoena, and argues Baroni’s and Kelly’s subpoena seeks additional materials far in excess of what the judge in the case authorized. U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton granted a motion by the law firm representing Christie’s office to quash a subpoena by Bill Baroni and Bridget Kelly, who face trial in the fall on charges they conspired to close lanes to create traffic jams in 2013 to punish a Democratic mayor for not endorsing Christie. The governor previously said he “gave it to the government”.
Baroni and Kelly are accused of orchestrating traffic jams on the bridge to punish a mayor for not endorsing Christie. “That’s where there are issues, quite frankly”, Wigenton said.
For example, the request for all phones and other devices, she said, was “so sweeping” that it told the court nothing about the “specific information” the defendants wanted to obtain.
“If and when the governor gets in that box and testifies”, Baldassare said, indicating the witness stand, “that email may be” very important. And it may be the only question about Christie’s phone that is answered. He didn’t say who has the phone now or how information retrieved from the phone was stored.
Baroni and Kelly claimed the Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher law firm didn’t produce relevant documents as required by a government subpoena. Mastro called the focus on the 2014 probe “an attempt to turn this trial into a sideshow” and “a lot of smoke and mirrors”. At the hearing, Mastro said the request for more material was “a search warrant for every device and document we inspected”, which he said was “unprecedented in the history of this country”.
Christie’s cellphone has become one of the many mysteries of this scandal.
Christie has said he has fully complied with the federal investigation, which included turning over his phone to investigators.
“Nothing has been provided in writing that would justify such a request”, Wigenton said in federal court in Newark, New Jersey, after a 2 1/2-hour hearing.
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And in a court filing late last month, Gibson Dunn wrote, “After preserving the governor’s phone’s contents, GDC searched for any responsive material and, once the search was completed, returned the phone and nonresponsive data”.
