Tag: david samson
Feds Seek Travel Records Of Port Authority’s Ex-Chairman

Feds Seek Travel Records Of Port Authority’s Ex-Chairman

By Shawn Boburg, The Record (Hackensack, N.J.) (TNS)

HACKENSACK, N.J. — Federal prosecutors have demanded that the Port Authority turn over records related to the personal travel of the agency’s former chairman, David Samson, as well as his relationship with Newark Liberty International Airport’s largest carrier, United Airlines, according to multiple sources, a development that opens yet another line of inquiry in what has become a sprawling criminal investigation.

The subpoena issued last month appears to be part of a probe into a flight route initiated by United while Samson was chairman of the transportation agency that operates the region’s airports. The route provided non-stop service between Newark and Columbia Metropolitan Airport in South Carolina — about 50 miles from a home where Samson often spent weekends with his wife. United halted the non-stop route on April 1 of last year, just three days after Samson resigned under a cloud.

Samson referred to the twice-a-week route — with a flight leaving Newark on Thursday evenings and another returning on Monday mornings — as “the chairman’s flight,” one source said. Federal aviation records show that during the 19 months United offered the non-stop service, the 50-seat planes that flew the route were, on average, only about half full.

United Airlines was in regular negotiations with the Port Authority and the Christie administration during Samson’s tenure over issues that included expansion of the airline’s service to Atlantic City and the extension of the PATH train to Newark Liberty.

Besides Samson’s personal travel records, the subpoena also demands information about votes Samson took while chairman and any communications he had with United and its former lobbyist, Jamie Fox, a close friend of Samson’s who has since become Gov. Chris Christie’s transportation commissioner.

United declined to comment beyond issuing a statement that it, too, had received a subpoena.

“United has received subpoenas for information and is cooperating,” the airline stated, adding that “United has no further comment.”

A spokeswoman for Samson didn’t provide comment. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey declined to comment, as did Christie’s office.

The revelations come the same week that Christie, who is considering a presidential run, is facing his own controversy over extravagant travel and who pays for it. On Monday, The New York Times reported that casino magnate Sheldon Adelson provided his private jet for the Christie family to go to Israel at a time when Adelson was opposing pending state legislation to legalize online gambling. Christie also accepted a $30,000 hotel stay on a trip to Jordan paid for by King Abdullah, who the Christie administration has said is a friend of the governor.

On Sunday, The Record reported that the non-profit group paying for three of Christie international trips in the past six months is backed with donations from companies that do business with the state and regularly lobby lawmakers, including Christie.

The federal investigation led by U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman began with the George Washington Bridge lane closings nearly 13 months ago. The office has remained circumspect about the special grand jury’s focus. But the subpoenas issued in the past month — including to Christie’s re-election campaign and now to the Port Authority for records related to United — suggest that it has widened far beyond the shut-down lanes that clogged Fort Lee’s local streets in September 2013.

Federal prosecutors had previously issued a subpoena for records related to votes Samson took, but this is the first public indication that prosecutors are focusing on his relationship with United.

Samson is a founding partner of a powerful law firm in West Orange, Wolff & Samson, which has earned millions doing legal work for numerous government agencies during Christie’s tenure. In 2013, the firm was counsel to five different state agencies.

Samson also spent many weekends in South Carolina.

Property records show a home in Aiken is under the name of Samson’s wife, Joanna Dunn Samson, a former deputy commissioner for the state Department of Environmental Protection. Her profile on the website of an animal advocacy non-profit group whose board she sits on says she moved to Aiken with her husband in 2006.

Samson served as the chairman of Christie’s transition team after he was first elected, and Christie appointed him to lead the Port Authority. He was elected chairman of the agency’s board of commissioners in February 2011 and resigned on March 28, 2014, amid controversy over whether he had any role in agency decisions that benefited his law firms’ clients. The non-stop flights between Newark and Columbia began on Sept. 6, 2012, according to Lynne Douglas, a spokeswoman for the Columbia Metropolitan Airport.

There was relatively little demand.

In November 2012, there were 16 nonstop flights between the two cities, representing 800 available seats. But only 244 of them were occupied, according to data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

A spokeswoman for United declined to say why the service, operated on Embraer 145 jets by the airlines’ ExpressJet division, was initiated or canceled, citing the investigation.

State records show that state Transportation Commissioner Fox’s previous company, Fox & Schuffler, was paid $45,000 a year to lobby on behalf of United as far back as 2011. He represented Continental Airlines in 2010, before it merged with United, records show. Christie appointed the Democrat to be his transportation chief last September. Samson and Fox, close friends, served together under former Gov. James E. McGreevey. Samson was attorney general; Fox was also McGreevey’s transportation commissioner and later his chief of staff. Fox then went on to serve as the Port Authority’s deputy executive director.

It’s unclear what role Fox had in discussions between United and the Port Authority or the Christie administration. Lobbying records show that while Fox was a lobbyist, he regularly represented the airline before New Jersey’s Departments of Labor and Treasury regarding “general aviation” and wage issues. Fox is no longer a member of the boutique firm, which has changed its name, according to its website.

Fox did not return a call on Thursday.

Samson and Christie met with United representatives at least once while negotiating, the airline has previously said. They met with company CEO Jeff Smisek on Aug. 23, 2013, for example, to discuss the airline’s operations in Newark and Atlantic City, a spokeswoman for the airline said previously. A spokesman for the governor was asked whether administration officials or the governor were aware of the flight, or the allegation that Samson had referred to it as “the chairman’s flight.” He declined to comment.

In 2013, the Port Authority promised to lengthen the PATH rail line to Newark Liberty, an extension that would directly connect Manhattan with United’s hub in Newark. And United agreed to begin flights out of Atlantic City, a key part of Christie’s effort to revive the struggling resort town.

Samson’s law firm served as bond counsel for the South Jersey Transportation Authority, which handed over operational control of the Atlantic City Airport to the Port Authority.

United pulled out of Atlantic City in November and filed a complaint with the FAA the following month alleging that the Port Authority was improperly diverting airport fees to non-aviation projects.

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Manhattan DA Opens Probe Into Port Authority

Manhattan DA Opens Probe Into Port Authority

By Shawn Boburg, The Record

HACKENSACK, N.J. — The Manhattan district attorney has launched a wide-ranging investigation into the Port Authority, issuing a subpoena for communications between New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s office and agency officials, a source familiar with the matter said Saturday.

The development signaled the opening of a new legal front in the controversy surrounding New Jersey’s beleaguered chief executive.

The subpoena, issued by the office of Cyrus Vance Jr. in March, requests the communications and other documents related to the rebuilding of the World Trade Center, the Port Authority’s takeover of operations at the Atlantic City Airport and the diversion of $1.8 billion in Port Authority money for construction of New Jersey roads, the source said.

Investigators, who have already begun conducting interviews, are looking at potential conflicts of interest among commissioners and whether the Christie administration’s tapping of Port Authority funds to rebuild the Pulaski Skyway and other state-owned roads was legally authorized, a second person familiar with the investigation said.

The subpoena, served on the Port Authority, means a second law-enforcement agency, besides the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey, is looking at controversies that have emerged or attracted scrutiny in the aftermath of the George Washington Bridge lane-closure scandal.

The office of U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Paul Fishman was notified before Manhattan’s district attorney issued the subpoena and was not surprised by it, said a third source familiar with talks between the offices. It’s unclear if the two offices are conducting parallel investigations or are working in tandem.

The Manhattan prosecutors’ focus on the Pulaski Skyway follows a report in The Record last month that found Port Authority lawyers expressed concern in 2011 that diverting $1.8 billion from the agency to state roadway projects in New Jersey was not legal without approval from lawmakers in New York and New Jersey.

Christie administration officials, internal Port Authority documents show, pushed for the money anyway, requiring a creative and complex legal justification that agency attorneys privately called “questionable.” Agency lawyers declared that the roadways, all in Hudson and Essex counties, were access roads to the Port Authority’s Lincoln Tunnel, even though the roads are miles from the tunnel in Weehawken and do not directly connect to it.

Investigators in Manhattan have been looking at the Port Authority’s assertion in official statements to bondholders that the road projects, which involve the Pulaski Skyway, Route 139, Wittpenn Bridge and Portway New Road, were properly authorized, and investigating whether the move violated New York’s state securities or state income-tax laws, one of the sources said. All the roadways are owned by New Jersey.

The northbound lanes of the Pulaski Skyway were closed Saturday and will remain that way for two years during a project to rebuild the 3.5-mile span. The elevated roadway was built in the early 1930s to provide access to the Holland Tunnel and now suffers from serious structural problems.

Vance’s office is also interested in whether the Port Authority’s governor-appointed commissioners — many of whom are titans of private industry in engineering, real estate and law — have taken part in agency decisions that overlap with their private business interests, one source said.

A representative of Fishman’s office in New Jersey referred questions to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which did not respond to requests for comment through its spokeswoman. Christie spokesman Kevin Roberts declined to comment.

The subpoena appeared to be wide-ranging, leading one person familiar with its contents to call it “a fishing expedition.” All of the people who spoke about the investigation agreed to do so only on the condition they not be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Amid the increasing scrutiny on the Port Authority, at least one commissioner appears to be preparing to step down, one of the sources said.

New Jersey Commissioner Anthony Sartor, who has been dogged by conflict-of-interest controversies because he owns a large engineering company and has led a committee that oversees construction at the World Trade Center, was expected to resign shortly, the person said. Sartor, who has been on the board nearly 15 years, has not been accused of any wrongdoing and has recused himself from nearly all World Trade Center votes in recent years.

New Jersey’s U.S. attorney has also issued a subpoena related to apparent conflicts involving former Port Authority Chairman David Samson, who is a founder of a prominent law firm that represents clients who have done business with the authority.

The investigation by Vance’s office appears to be looking at other commissioners’ potential conflicts and how those are handled internally, as well. The subpoena requests documents related to several specific World Trade Center votes, including approvals related to the $4 billion transportation hub under construction at the site in downtown Manhattan.

“They’re looking at conflicts, conflict policies, how conflicts are tracked and how they’re reported,” one source said of investigators from Vance’s office. The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News reported Vance’s interest on Saturday.

Port Authority commissioners fill out financial-disclosure forms once a year and are responsible for updating them periodically. The agency’s legal department, led by Darrell Buchbinder, who also holds the title of chief ethics officer, uses those lists to notify commissioners when a matter might present a conflict, but the decision of whether to vote is left to individual commissioners.

Samson, who resigned last month, has drawn criticism for voting on matters that benefited clients of his law firm, Wolff & Samson. His firm served as bond counsel for the South Jersey Transportation Agency, which last year handed over operational control of the Atlantic City Airport to the Port Authority. Samson recused himself from that vote, but spoke favorably about the decision afterward in response to questions from reporters, WNYC radio reported.

A Port Authority spokesman declined to comment .

In addition to the new probe and the investigation by Fishman’s office, a panel of state legislators has also been looking into the lane closures and related matters.

A report commissioned by Christie and released late last month cleared the governor of any wrongdoing. It was widely criticized as a “whitewash” by Democrats and others who cited Christie’s ties to members of the team of attorneys that led the investigation.

Photo:  Joe Shlabotnik via Flickr

Christie Announces Port Authority Chairman’s Resignation At Combative Press Conference

Christie Announces Port Authority Chairman’s Resignation At Combative Press Conference

By Michael Phillis, The Record

TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced Friday that David Samson, the chairman of the Port Authority, has tendered his resignation.

That announcement, during an hourlong news conference, comes a day after Christie’s lengthy internal investigation cleared him of any wrongdoing in the bridge scandal.

Christie answered questions for about an hour and often in a confrontational manner, with reporters asking questions about the account of his administration’s role in the bridge scandal.

Samson’s resignation is effective immediately, Christie said. What role Samson had in the lane closings is one of the major open questions in the scandal. His name appears in emails between staff that have turned up in subpoenaed documents.

Christie has been on a media blitz of late, appearing on ABC in an interview with anchor Diane Sawyer. He has also sat down with Good Morning America and Fox News. He has expressed disappointment in two former associates, Bridget Anne Kelly and David Wildstein, saying that they lied to him and acted alone — a conclusion the internal investigation confirms.

“Anybody who works for me who believes that something like this was something that would be pleasing or acceptable to me didn’t know me in the first place,” Christie said Friday, about his firing of Kelly.

He wasn’t opposed to some changes at the Port Authority including possibly splitting the organization in two.

Two independent investigations are still underway — one by the legislature and the other by a federal prosecutor. His internal investigation does lay out an explanation for what happened and will be contrasted with the results from the other two inquiries.

The report was complete and came to a sound, factual conclusion backed up by numerous footnotes and thousands of documents, Christie said.

“We gave them unfettered, complete access to everyone in this government,” Christie said.

“I think the report will stand the test of time.”

He did concede that he should have gathered more information before sharing his thoughts on the lane closings back in December when he originally mocked accusations that the administration was involved. This claim was proven false once Kelly’s “traffic problems” message was revealed.

Christie said he regretted ever putting Wildstein on the Port Authority.

“It was (former Port Authority deputy executive director) Bill Baroni who brought David Wildstein into the Port Authority,” Christie said. “I obviously believe having David Wildstein at the Port Authority was a mistake.”

He also said Samson’s resignation had been in the planning stages for almost a year.

Some members of the media said the report had tinges of sexism — Kelly’s personal life was explored in-depth but not that of some of the men involved. Kelly’s breakup was chronicled and her alleged distraught emotional state was documented in detail as a possible motivating factor for her actions.

When questioned about the claims of sexism, Christie said the document was based on fact.

In January, Christie held a news conference that stretched on for about two hours in which he explained that he had no involvement or prior knowledge in the lane closures at the George Washington Bridge in September.

AFP Photo/Jeff Zelevansky

Federal Prosecutors Probing Port Authority Chairman’s Interests

Federal Prosecutors Probing Port Authority Chairman’s Interests

By Michael Linhorst, The Record (Hackensack, NJ)

TRENTON, NJ — Federal prosecutors in New Jersey are investigating Port Authority Chairman David Samson’s overlapping public and private interests, a source said Tuesday, on the eve of a commissioners’ meeting at which protesters are expected to repeat calls for Samson’s resignation.

The U.S. attorney for New Jersey issued a subpoena requesting documents related to Samson’s involvement in agency votes that benefited clients of his powerful law firm, Wolff & Samson, said a source familiar with the matter who would speak only on condition of anonymity.

The subpoena, which was issued early last week, appears to expand U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman’s investigation beyond the September lane closures at the George Washington Bridge and into the chairman’s business dealings.

“We don’t comment on any investigations,” Samson’s attorney, Michael Chertoff, said in a statement.

A similar subpoena was issued by federal prosecutors in Manhattan earlier this month but was quickly withdrawn, as authorities in New York agreed to cede the investigation to their counterparts across the Hudson River. Fishman had already begun a review of the lane closures that were ordered by David Wildstein, another Port Authority ally of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Samson has come under fire for his vote on a $256 million reconstruction of the rundown PATH station in Harrison three months after a builder represented by Wolff & Samson proposed converting a nearby warehouse into hundreds of luxury apartments.

Records show Samson also voted to reduce a yearly lease payment from more than $900,000 to $1 for a park-and-ride lot in a deal with NJ Transit. At the time, NJ Transit was paying his firm up to $1.5 million for work related to maximizing profits on park-and-ride lots. After The Record reported on that issue, Samson said he had meant to recuse himself from the vote.

A subcommittee of the Port Authority’s Board of Commissioners is scheduled to reconsider the lease deal Wednesday morning, before the board meets later in the day.

Samson also voted on two bridge contracts worth $2.8 billion that went to construction companies represented by his firm. A person briefed on the subpoena said it requested documents related to those decisions, and possibly others.

About 30 protesters will be posted outside that meeting to call for Samson’s resignation, according to the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, which is organizing the protest. The group describes itself as an association of union organizers and environmentalists and is affiliated with nearly a dozen public- and private-sector unions.

“You really see this groundswell of opposition to him remaining as chairman of the Port Authority, and I think tomorrow’s protest will demonstrate that,” Rob Duffey, communications director of the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, said Tuesday.

The group filed an ethics complaint against Samson this month, arguing that he violated the state’s conflict-of-interest law by getting involved in Port Authority votes that benefited clients of his law firm.

“These ethical lapses, or the allegations that we make in this complaint, demonstrate a clear violation of the public trust,” Duffey said.

Duffey said his group’s position mirrored that of Patrick Foye, the executive director of the Port Authority. Foye, who was appointed by New York’s Democratic governor, said last month that he did not believe Samson had the “moral authority” to lead the agency.

Samson’s actions at the authority have come under scrutiny since the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal became national news. Local access lanes in Fort Lee were shut down for four days in September, causing huge traffic jams in the borough, apparently in retribution for the Democratic mayor’s refusal to endorse Christie for re-election.

Meanwhile, Christie’s former campaign manager Bill Stepien, who is also the subject of a federal investigation into the lane closures, according to his attorney, found a new job at a top political consulting firm despite the controversy.

Stepien now works for FLS Connect, a Minnesota-based vendor for the Republican Party, the company confirmed on Tuesday. The Republican National Committee paid the firm more than $67 million between 2008 and this year, according to data compiled by The Center for Responsive Politics. It made more than $20 million from Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in 2012. The firm specializes in telephone calls for fundraising, advertising, voter identification or tele-town hall meetings.

“FLS Connect is excited to have Bill Stepien join our team,” the firm’s president, Sheila Berkley, said in a statement. “His extensive national experience and knowledge will be an asset to our clients and our company.”

The job signals a possible return to high-profile Republican politics for Stepien, although back in New Jersey, his attorney was still fighting a court battle to keep Stepien from having to turn over documents to a panel of state lawmakers investigating the lane closures. A Superior Court judge in Mercer County is expected to rule by the end of the month at the earliest on whether Stepien and former Christie deputy chief of staff Bridget Anne Kelly must comply with a subpoena for documents.

Stepien ran Christie’s successful campaigns for governor in 2009 and last year, and he was seen as a rising star in the national Republican Party. After Christie won by a 24-point margin in November, he signed on as a consultant with the Republican Governors Association, which Christie chairs.

But Stepien broke his ties with the association after documents became public earlier this year showing Christie’s top Port Authority appointees kept Stepien updated on the fallout from their closure of the bridge access lanes.

Stepien could not be reached for comment on Tuesday, and FLS Connect did not comment beyond its statement. Stepien’s job with the firm was first reported by Politico.

Photo: Chris Christie via Flickr