Christie said on Wednesday that the accusations that he lied were not true.
Advertisement
“I have absolutely no reason to believe that”, he said. “There’s nothing new to talk about”, Christie told the Associated Press, regarding the new texts. “There’s nothing new to talk about”.
“She testified under oath before the Legislature in a manner not consistent with the existence and deletion of those texts”, lawyers wrote in the filing.
Christie, now also a senior adviser to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, has denied he had any knowledge of the Bridgegate scandal when it occurred.
In Tuesday’s filing, attorney Michael Baldassare hinted there are many more texts still to be revealed.
Chris Christie joined a team of celebrities at Yankee Stadium and 17,000 fans Wednesday, June 3, 2015 for a charity softball game to honor slain police officers. “Are you listening?” Christina Renna, who worked in part of the governor’s office focused on his re-election campaign, wrote. “Holding his own up there”.
Renna replied: “Yes. But he lied”. She added that if emails were uncovered in court discovery, “it could be bad”.
At the news conference in question, on December 13, 2013, Christie said he had “made it very clear to everybody on my senior staff that if anyone had any knowledge about this that they needed to come forward to me and tell me about it, and they’ve all assured me that they don’t”.
Stepien’s lawyer, Kevin Marino, on Wednesday called the notion Stepien was involved “categorically false and irresponsible”. “The government investigated the Bridgegate affair for more than 16 months and did not charge Mr. Stepien”.
Baroni and his co-defendant, Christie’s former Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly, are scheduled to go to trial in September. The office was responsible for outreach to county and local officials. And an attorney for Stepien – the former Christie campaign manager now working for a political group supporting the possible gubernatorial candidacy of Christie’s lieutenant governor, Kim Guadagno – did not respond to an email. Baroni, along with Bridget Kelly, Christie’s ex-deputy chief of staff, are facing charges of conspiracy and fraud for their alleged involvement in theplot.
A former Port Authority executive, David Wildstein, pleaded guilty and is cooperating with prosecutors.
The filing by Bill Baroni, a former top official at the Port Authority of NY and New Jersey, contains snippets of text messages by New Jersey offiicals at the time that appear directly to contradict Mr Christie’s assertion a nationally broadcast press conference in December 2015 that no one among his senior staff were aware of the situation.
Advertisement
The text exchange is the first piece of evidence suggesting Christie knew about the lane-closing scheme, The New York Times reported.
