Christie, who is advising GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, wasn’t charged in the lane-closing scandal and has denied knowing anything about it.
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Renna was a top aide to Bridget Anne Kelly, who was Christie’s deputy chief of staff and wrote the “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” email. Kelly and former Port Authority Deputy Director Bill Baroni face nine criminal counts for their alleged involvement in a scheme prosecutors say was meant to punish Democratic Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, who refused to endorse Christie’s re-election bid. U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton will preside in Newark.
The text exchange was introduced by an attorney for Baroni as part of an argument over what evidence should be admitted at trial.
Christie has long maintained that he had no involvement in the scandal and that he has been truthful in his public statements.
“I absolutely dispute it. It’s nothing new. There’s nothing new to talk about”. Nothing contained in this text message changes that in any way.
“Are you listening?” the aide, Christina Renna, texted a colleague.
Whether Christie had anything to do with with the bridge lane closings or not, two members of his senior staff has been indicted in connection with the federal investigations stemming from the lane closings and three more have been indicted, two of whom will go on trial next month. Yet new court documents reveal that maybe Christie wasn’t being entirely straight when he said he believed his senior staffers did not know about the “traffic study” plan.
Neither Christie nor Stepien, who now runs a Republican think tank, have been charged. Renna texted to a coll. “He just flat out lied”.
Mr. Sheridan: “Gov is doing fine. Holding his own up there”. And if emails are found with the subpoena or [Christie campaign] emails are uncovered in discovery if it comes to that it could be bad.
Baroni, a former deputy executive director at the Port Authority, and Kelly, Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, face charges including wire fraud and civil rights violations for allegedly closing access lanes to the bridge in Fort Lee to punish that city’s Democratic mayor for not endorsing Christie’s re-election.
Stepien, who led the now-defunct Intergovernmental Affairs unit before Kelly, was sacked by Christie on January 9, after it was revealed Stepien did have knowledge of – but not involvement in – the lane closures. “It’s ridiculous. It’s nothing new”, Christie told reporters, according to the AP.
Bill Stepien, mentioned in the text conversation, was Christie’s campaign chief.
“Ms. Renna will answer questions publicly when she testifies at the upcoming trial, not before”, said the attorney, Henry Klingeman.
At a January 2014 news conference during which Christie announced he had fired Kelly, he described asking each of his staffers a month earlier, before the news conference, if they knew anything about the closures.
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The prosecution team, meanwhile, “continues to ignore” evidence that clear Baroni of wrongdoing, such as the texts between Renna and Sheridan, Baldassare wrote. “She deleted her text messages at a time when the Assembly transportation committee, armed with subpoena power, was investigating the lane closures”.
