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Legislative Panel On N.J. Bridge Scandal Wants Interview Transcripts From Report

Legislative Panel On N.J. Bridge Scandal Wants Interview Transcripts From Report

By John Reitmeyer, The Record

TRENTON, N.J. — The co-chairs of the legislative committee investigating the lane closures at the George Washington Bridge say they want to see transcripts of the interviews conducted by the lawyers Gov. Chris Christie hired to compile the report that cleared him of any role in the closures.

The panel could soon move to subpoena the interview transcripts and seek additional oral testimony, Senate Majority Loretta Weinberg and Assemblyman John Wisniewki said Monday. Both are Democrats.

“What I would want to see are all the interviews,” Wisniewski said. “If we don’t have them, we’ll subpoena them.”

A report issued last week by lawyers from the firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher said more than 70 witnesses were interviewed, including Christie himself, to help determine why two of the three lanes used by the motorists who come onto the bridge in Fort Lee were closed for several days last September.

The report found that Christie was innocent, instead casting blame largely on former Christie Port Authority appointee David Wildstein and the governor’s former deputy chief of staff Bridget Kelly. The lawyers said the lane closures appeared to have been carried out to punish Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, though it did not conclusively confirm suspicions that it was for not endorsing Christie’s re-election bid last year.

The legislative committee led by Weinberg and Wisniewski sent subpoenas to the governor’s office and several other individuals and organizations earlier this year seeking documents related to the lane closures.

The panel just recently received thousands of documents from the Christie administration. But both lawmakers said they don’t think transcripts from the interviews the lawyers conducted for their investigation have been turned over to the committee.

“The next step will be to update our committee and with the guidance of counsel to figure out how best to get the documents upon which Mr. Mastro based his ‘exhaustive inquiry,’” Weinberg said Monday.

She also said the team of lawyers led by Randy Mastro has not provided a list of the 70 witnesses it spoke to.

“We don’t even know who he interviewed,” Weinberg said.

AFP Photo/Jim Watson

Will Chris Christie’s Career Survive?

Will Chris Christie’s Career Survive?

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Stronger Than The Storm? Polls Show Christie Weathering Bridge Scandal

Stronger Than The Storm? Polls Show Christie Weathering Bridge Scandal

The George Washington Bridge scandal that has rocked New Jersey governor Chris Christie is taking a toll on his poll numbers in New Jersey, but has not had a big effect on his national standing, according to two new polls.

A Monmouth University/Asbury Park Press poll released Monday finds that Governor Christie’s approval rating has dropped to 59 percent in the wake of the scandal. That number, while still formidable, is down from 65 percent in December, and marks the first time Christie’s approval rating has dropped below 60 percent since before Hurricane Sandy hit the state in October 2012. Christie’s disapproval rating similarly rose to 32 percent, up from 25 percent last month.

Christie’s personal standing has taken a harder hit; 44 percent of New Jerseyans now hold a favorable impression of the governor, while 28 percent hold an unfavorable impression, and 28 percent are unsure. That’s down from an overwhelming 70 percent who felt positively about Christie one year ago.

“There is now a gap between the public’s view of Christie’s job performance and his personal behavior,” Monmouth University Polling Institute director Patrick Murray said in a release accompanying the poll. “There has been a shift from largely positive opinion of the man to a situation where some New Jerseyans are not quite sure what to think of him.”

New Jerseyans are very plugged into the scandal, and they’re skeptical of Christie’s story — 83 percent are following the story surrounding the lane closures, and 64 percent believe they were an act of political retaliation; 51 percent say that Christie has not been completely honest about what he knows, and 52 percent think that he knew about his staff’s involvement earlier than he claims he found out. Perhaps most troubling for Christie, New Jerseyans now say that their governor does not have the right temperament to be president, by a 49 to 44 percent margin.

Still, there is evidence that Christie can survive the damage in the Garden State; just 30 percent of those following the story say that they now have less trust in Christie, while 67 percent say their trust in the governor has not changed due to the bridge scandal.

The “Bridgegate” scandal has made a much smaller ripple across the country, however. According to a new Pew Research Center poll, 60 percent of Americans say their opinion of Christie has not changed in the past few days — 16 percent have a less favorable view of the embattled governor, 6 percent have a more favorable opinion, and 18 percent don’t know.

Pew chart 1

The survey further finds that just 18 percent followed Christie’s apology for the lane closures “very closely,” trailing behind the cold weather that chilled much of the United States (44 percent), the U.S. economy (28 percent), and the unemployment debate in Washington (19 percent), among the most-watched stories of the past week. “Bridgegate” did draw more attention than former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates’ book, a topic that captivated Washington, but drew close scrutiny from just 11 percent of the country.

Those who followed Christie’s scandal closely are more likely to have changed their opinion of the governor; 29 percent say their opinion of Christie has become less favorable, while 11 percent say it has become more favorable and 57 percent say their opinion did not change.

Notably, Democrats who followed Christie’s apology closely have become much less likely to support him — 43 percent say their opinion of Christie is less favorable, while 50 percent say their opinion hasn’t changed, and just 3 percent say their opinion of him is more favorable. So if nothing else, the story may have dealt a serious blow to the governor’s much-heralded ability to win Democratic support.

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Christie Puts His Political Career On The Line As He Apologizes For Bridge Scandal

Christie Puts His Political Career On The Line As He Apologizes For Bridge Scandal

New Jersey governor Chris Christie put his political career on the line on Thursday by claiming that he had no knowledge of any political motivation behind the closure of lanes on the George Washington Bridge.

“I am embarrassed and humiliated,” he said at a press conference at the state Capitol in Trenton. He went on to announce that he had dismissed his deputy chief of staff, Bridget Kelly. In the emails that became public on Wednesday, Kelly wrote, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”

Speculation — largely driven by the reporting of local papers and the staff of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show — has risen for months that the lane closures in August, which lasted for four days, were an attempt to punish Fort Lee’s Democratic mayor Mark Sokolich. Christie insists that he first learned of the involvement of his staff when the emails became public on Wednesday, although he later said he hadn’t slept well “for two nights.”

He promised to individually speak to his staff over the next few days and make any more revelations public. “I don’t know,” he said, when asked if he knew who made the decision to close part of the bridge. The governor seemed to believe a legitimate traffic study — the official reason given for the lane closure — may have been conducted, despite the revelations in the emails.

About four weeks ago, Christie held a press conference in which he jokingly dismissed the scandal.

“Unbeknownst to everybody I was actually the guy out there, I was in overalls and a hat,” he said at the time. The governor claimed in Thursday’s press conference that he had asked all of his staff, including Kelly, to come forward with any evidence of involvement an hour before he made those jokes to the press. He also claimed he would never have been so facetious about the increased traffic, which resulted in delays in emergency services, including an ambulance bringing a 91-year-old woman to a hospital. She later died.

Christie also said that he had “lost confidence” in his former campaign manager Bill Stepien, whom he has asked to withdraw his nomination to lead the state’s Republican Party. Stepien will also not be employed to consult for the Republican Governors Association, of which Christie was recently elected chairman.

The New York Times’ Kate Zernike recently argued that the stories of Christie’s “petty political revenge” all “add up” to reinforce his image as a bully — a charge that the governor denied repeatedly during his press conference.

“I am not a bully,” he said on Thursday, insisting several times that he was “heartbroken” by the revelations.

Christie’s aides dismissed worries about the lane closures affecting kids by saying they were  “children of Buono voters”

“People don’t go to the bathroom without asking his permission,” Christie’s Democratic opponent, State Senator Barbara Buono, told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Wednesday. “But I have to tell you, those quotes were startling to me. They were horrifying that somebody would talk about children in that way. It’s an abuse of trust of the public.”

“I have absolutely nothing to hide,” Christie said, when asked if he was willing to speak to law enforcement. Paul Fishman, New Jersey’s U.S. Attorney, announced just before Christie’s press conference that he was reviewing the decision to close the lanes.