Chris Christie, in an attempt to avoid damage from a scandal that could undermine his presidential prospects, said Thursday he has fired a top aide who apparently created traffic jams as part of a political vendetta. She and former Port Authority of NY and New Jersey executive director Bill Baroni also is on trial.
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Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich testified he told a Christie staffer about his endorsement decision in the late summer of 2013, weeks before traffic jams at the George Washington Bridge plunged the town into four days of gridlock.
The closures, which tied up thousands of New Jersey and NY commuters heading to the nation’s busiest bridge for hours over several days, were meant to punish a local mayor for refusing to support Christie in his re-election bid, said prosecutors. Kelly is Christie’s former deputy chief of staff.
Assistant United States attorney Vikas Khanna said, on Monday, that New Jersey governor Chris Christie knew of the plan to close lanes on the George Washington Bridge between NY and New Jersey, marking the first time that prosecutors have directly alleged culpability on the part the governor in the scandal.
During opening statements Monday in Newark, federal prosecutors said a third Christie associate, David Wildstein, will testify that he and a Christie aide informed the governor about the traffic shutdowns during a September 11 memorial service in 2013, according to the Associated Press.
Kelly and Baroni claim their actions weren’t criminal and the alleged scheme was orchestrated by another former Port Authority official, David Wildstein, who has pleaded guilty.
“The evidence will show that Baroni and Wildstein were so committed to their plan to punish Mayor Sokolich”, Khanna said, “that during those precious moments they had alone with the governor, they bragged about the fact that there were traffic problems in Fort Lee, and Mayor Sokolich was not getting his calls returned”.
Christie has long denied any involvement in the closures and neither the federal investigation nor the New Jersey legislative inquiry has pointed to him.
The Trump campaign did not return a request for comment about whether Christie would remain on the transition team, and a team member forwarded requests to the campaign.
Defense lawyers have also said that Mr. Christie knew.
According to attorney Michael Critchley, Kelly’s role in the Christie administration mainly revolved around logistics and scheduling.
Kelly was a “briefer” and “scheduler”, who handled logistics such as planning who would attend Christie’s town-hall meetings and breakfast at the governor’s mansion, Critchley said.
“The idea that Bridget Kelly could instruct David Wildstein to to do anything is absurd”, Critchley said, citing the fact that Kelly had only been Christie’s deputy chief of staff for three months at the time of the bridge closures.
The New Jersey governor’s campaign may be best remembered for his rhetorical garrotting of fellow candidate Marco Rubio on a New Hampshire debate stage just days before that state’s primary. “They wanted to throw her, in some sense, under the presidential bus”. The defense attacked Wildstein’s credibility as a witness, calling him vindictive and a liar, the Associated Press reported. “And the three of them worked hand in hand”. According to the attorney, the email has been taken out of context due to Kelly’s high email volume and penchant for shorthand and quick responses.
Christie officials shut down the bridge, a major thoroughfare in one of the most densely populated regions of the US, from September 9 to September 13, 2013, causing gridlock throughout the city of Fort Lee in New Jersey. Or as Baroni’s attorney, Michael Baldassare, put it: “At the Port Authority, when David Wildstein spoke, Gov. Christie’s voice came out, and everybody knew it. David Wildstein looked like a ventriloquist’s puppet sitting on Christopher J. Christie’s lap”.
Witness testimony is scheduled to begin Tuesday, with Fort Lee’s police chief.
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On Day One of the trial of the two former Christie allies, a federal prosecutor declared for the first time that Christie was told about the bridge bottleneck while it was going on. He said despite what the evidence may show, the only issue to be decided whether Bill Baroni and Bridget Kelly are guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt, of the crimes they are charged, nothing more.
