The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Tag: george washington bridge scandal
Law Firm That Cleared Christie In Bridge Scandal Donated To Group He Heads

Law Firm That Cleared Christie In Bridge Scandal Donated To Group He Heads

By Michael Linhorst, Melissa Hayes and Herb Jackson, The Record (Hackensack, N.J.)

HACKENSACK, N.J. — The law firm that cleared New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie of any involvement in the George Washington Bridge scandal gave $10,000 to a national political group he heads, a disclosure made public hours after the governor said donors like that should face no limits to the amounts they can give candidates.

Christie, a prolific fundraiser courting donors ahead of a possible presidential campaign, called for eliminating the nation’s limits on political donations in a town-hall-style event on Tuesday. Donors should be able to give unlimited amounts of money, he argued, but those gifts should be quickly made public.

The public on Tuesday got its first look at who has donated to the Republican Governors Association in the months since Christie took over as chairman.

That list includes a hedge fund billionaire, large pharmaceuticals companies and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher — the law firm Christie hired to investigate his office’s involvement in the lane closures.

Gibson Dunn gave $10,000 to the RGA on March 18, nine days before a team of its top lawyers made public a report clearing Christie in the bridge scandal. The report, which critics called a “whitewash,” said that Christie had no prior knowledge of the lane closures that created huge traffic jams in Fort Lee in September.

The law firm’s California office appears to make regular contributions to the GOP group, which Christie has credited with helping him get elected in 2009. A partner in the firm is on a leadership committee at the RGA.

“Money is like water,” Christie told a group in Somerset. “No matter how many walls you put up, it finds its way. So let’s let the water in and hold people accountable for what they do.”

Christie flew to Las Vegas a few weeks ago to curry favor with Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire who spent nearly $100 million backing Republican presidential candidates in 2012. And he has traveled the country in recent months raising money for the RGA.

Many companies make annual contributions to the Republican Governors Association and its Democratic Party counterpart to gain access to events the governors attend.

Gibson Dunn has not donated to the Democratic Governors Association this year and did not make contributions to the group in 2013 or 2012. It made two donations to the RGA in 2012, each for $10,000. The group donated $15,000 in 2011 and $10,000 in 2010 and 2009.

Representatives of the firm did not respond to requests on Tuesday seeking comment on the donations.

The RGA had 60 donors who gave at least $100,000 during the first three months of the year, including seven who gave at least $500,000. The association brought in $22.4 million from January to March this year.

Topping its donor list, at $750,000, was Lawrence DeGeorge of Jupiter, Fla., chief executive of the LPL Investment Group. Hedge fund manager Paul Singer, who was reported to be a guest in the VIP section at Christie’s campaign victory party in November, was also among the $500,000 donors.

Two pharmaceuticals companies were the biggest contributors from New Jersey: Bridgewater-based Sanofi Aventis gave $250,000, and Whitehouse Station-based Merck Sharp and Dohme, a subdidiary of Merck & Co., gave $100,000.

Those supporters and others should be able to give unlimited amounts of money, Christie said Tuesday at a town-hall-style event in Somerset. But their gifts should be quickly made public, he said.

“So if somebody wants to write me a $100,000 check for my campaign, great,” he said. “But 48 hours later, everybody who has the Internet will know that Mr. Smith gave me a $100,000 check.”

Current restrictions on how much a donor can give a candidate — $2,600 per election — push wealthy activists to give money to independent political groups, like super PACs, that can keep their donors secret, Christie said. That creates a system where voters see advertisements supporting or opposing candidates but “have no idea, or little idea, who’s funding those efforts,” he said.

That argument is similar to the one put forward by New Jersey’s nonpartisan Election Law Enforcement Commission, which is pushing for legislation that would require independent groups to regularly disclose their donors. It would also increase contribution limits and streamline various other restrictions in an attempt to direct money back toward political campaigns and political parties, which have to comply with many more regulations than independent groups do.

Despite Christie’s apparent distaste for anonymous groups such as super PACs, he received significant support in his re-election last year from those organizations.

Photo: Peter Stevens via Flickr

Internal Report Clears Christie In Bridge Lane Closures

Internal Report Clears Christie In Bridge Lane Closures

By Stephanie Akin, The Record

HACKENSACK, N.J. — Two former high-level Christie appointees share almost exclusive blame for the George Washington Bridge lane closures, according to a report commissioned by the Christie administration that concludes New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and current members of his staff were not involved in the closures and other allegations of impropriety that surfaced in the wake of the scandal.

Bridget Kelly, a deputy chief of staff in the governor’s office who was fired in January, and David Wildstein, a Port Authority official who resigned in December, planned and carried out the September lane closings, the 360 page report said.

“It was Wildstein’s ‘idea,'” the report reads, “like so many other ‘crazy’ ones he’d had before that never got off the ground.”

The report also addresses suggestions made by Wildstein that he mentioned the Fort Lee issue to the governor at a public event during the lane closures, but says the governor “recalls no such exchange.” It goes on to say that if the conversation did take place it “would not have registered with the Governor in any event because he knew nothing about this decision in advance and would not have considered another traffic issue at one of the bridges or tunnels to be memorable.”

Bill Baroni, the former deputy executive of the Port Authority who resigned in December, and Bill Stepien, the governor’s former campaign manager, knew of the lane closures but not of any ulterior motives behind them, according to the report. The report also says that Stepien and Kelly were involved in a “personal relationship” that “cooled” a month before the lane closures.

The report also found no merit to a related allegation that Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno and other staffers tried to strong-arm Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer into fast-tracking a real estate development in exchange for Sandy aid.

New York law firm Gibson and Dunn compiled the report, which acknowledges that key people — including Kelly, Zimmer, and Stepien — were not interviewed. However, federal prosecutors investigating the scandal have sat with Zimmer regarding her allegations. The report also was done without interviewing Port Authority Chairman David Samson.

The report, which reportedly cost $1 million to complete, lays out in detail the events leading up to the bridge closings and what it describes as the highly charged atmosphere in the Christie administration as outside pressure built to explain what happened. At one point, it said, Christie held a meeting with inside staffers at which he stood the whole time and spoke loudly.

At another, when he announced his decision to fire Kelly for “lying to him” about the lane closures and severing ties with Stepien, he was, “welling up with tears.”

The lane closures were carried out, at least in part, to target Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, the report says. But it finds no clear motivations.

“The common speculation that this was an act of political retaliation because Mayor Sokolich failed to endorse the Governor for re-election is not established by the evidence that we have seen,” it reads.

But as public pressure mounted, Wildstein and Kelly tried to delete personal emails that showed their planning. Wildstein and Baroni told members of the Christie administration it was a legitimate traffic study, and Wildstein coached Baroni to testify to that effect at a November Assembly hearing on the issue, the report reads.

By December, Wildstein realized that he had to resign, the report reads. While he continued to insist that it was a legitimate traffic study, he told Christie officials it was his idea, the report reads.

He also tried to deflect the blame, telling Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak, who he met for dinner as he was preparing his resignation, that Kelly and Stepien also knew, and that he had the emails to prove it, the report reads. He also said he had mentioned the “issue in Fort Lee” to the governor at a public event during the lane realignment. The governor does not recall the conversation, the report said.

Drewniak then reported Wildstein’s claims to the governor’s office, as did others who had heard rumors about Kelly’s emails, the report read.

The governor held a meeting on Dec. 12 demanding answers from his staff and had asked Kelly and Stepien about the issue directly, the report said. Both denied any involvement, and Kelly told the governor’s chief of staff, Kevin O’Dowd, she had searched her emails, even showing him a couple, the report read.

“But Kelly was nevertheless panicked by what she considered to be O’Dowd’s ‘grilling,'” the report read. “She called her staffer, Christina Renna, that same night to make a desperate request: delete the email that Kelly sent to Renna on Sept. 12, 2013, where Kelly, upon learning Mayor Sokolich was “extremely upset,” responded: ‘Good.'”

Renna, who has also since resigned, preserved a copy of the email, the report said.

During a press conference Thursday, Randy Mastro, the lead attorney for Gibson Dunn, said that the motivation remains unclear.

“David Wildstein is the person who originated this idea and orchestrated it,” Mastro said. “They had an ulterior motive for implementing that decision. We are not able to answer what that ulterior motive was.”

Throughout the report, Governor Christie is consistently portrayed as being unaware of what his staff was doing regarding the lane closures and when he did find out, the report claims, he acted decisively. The language in the report is also derisive of those who are found to be at fault, particularly Wildstein and Kelly, who are portrayed as rogue political operatives acting independently. The report also questions Kelly’s ability to run the office she headed, calling her “inexperienced.”

Mastro, at the press event in Manhattan, was questioned on the impartiality of the report.

“It’s a search for the truth, and we believe we have gotten to the truth,” he said. “We will be judged at the end of the day by whether we got this right, we intended to get it right, we believe we got it right. As to the most important questions, we believe we got it right.”

The report concludes with several recommendations. They include:

  • Restricting the use of personal email for official business.
  • Eliminating the office that Kelly headed, called the Intergovernmental Affairs Office, which the report says has been tainted by the scandal.
  • Creating and ombudsman who would be responsible for receiving and responding to complaints within the governor’s office and periodically issuing public reports.
  • Appointing an ethics officer to oversee ethics conflicts in the governor’s office and train staff members.
  • Reorganizing leadership structure of Port Authority to ensure its independence and eliminate divisions between New York and New Jersey that were revealed by the controversy.

AFP Photo/Eric Thayer

Internal Probe Into Bridge Closing Draws Second Snub

Internal Probe Into Bridge Closing Draws Second Snub

By Michael Linhorst, The Record

TRENTON, N.J. — Another key player in the investigations surrounding New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on Monday refused to cooperate with the lawyer hired by the governor’s office.

Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich rejected a request by Randy Mastro to provide documents and sit down for an interview, according to a letter dated Feb. 17 and obtained by The Record.

Granting an interview with Mastro, or supplying the documents he requested, would not be appropriate while other investigations are continuing, said the letter sent to Mastro from Sokolich’s lawyer, Timothy Donohue.

Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer had refused a similar request last week.

Sokolich “fully intends to cooperate” with those other investigations — by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and a joint legislative committee — Donohue wrote.

Documents released last month suggested that the closing of two access lanes to the George Washington Bridge, creating huge traffic jams in Fort Lee for four days in September, were a response to Sokolich’s refusal to endorse Christie for re-election. The closures were apparently initiated when Bridget Anne Kelly, a deputy chief of staff for the governor, told a top Port Authority official, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”

Mastro also requested interviews with and documents from Zimmer, who accused members of the Christie administration of withholding money slated for Superstorm Sandy recovery because she did not fast-track a billion-dollar real estate development project. Last week Zimmer said she would not cooperate with Mastro.

While the U.S. Attorney’s Office and a special investigatory panel in the Legislature continue their investigations into the lane closures, Mastro is conducting an internal inquiry into the closures.

“The governor’s office takes the allegations regarding the George Washington Bridge toll/lane realignments from September 9-13, 2013 very seriously,” Mastro said in a Feb. 8 letter to Donohue. “For that reason, we have assembled a team here that includes five former federal prosecutors and are conducting a thorough review of the facts pertinent to these allegations.”

In addition to requesting various documents and a sit-down interview with the Fort Lee mayor, Mastro filed a public information request with Fort Lee. In his Feb. 17 response letter, Donohue said Mastro “would be receiving responsive documents in the very near future.”

Donohue, a partner at Arleo, Donohue & Biancamano LLC in West Orange, was hired by Fort Lee last week to represent the mayor. He will be paid $350 per hour, a discount of about $250 from his normal rate, officials said.

Christie’s office hired Mastro late last month to help review the office’s operations and information flow, aid an internal review into the lane closures, and assist “with document retention and production in connection with the United States Attorney inquiry, and other appropriate inquires and requests for information,” according to the lawyer’s retention letter. Mastro, a partner in the New York office of the firm Gibson Dunn, is being paid $650 an hour — more than a 40 percent discount off his normal rate.

Photo:  Joe Shlabotnik via Flickr

Christie Knew About GWB Lane Closures, Lawyer For Port Authority Exec Says

Christie Knew About GWB Lane Closures, Lawyer For Port Authority Exec Says

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

HACKENSACK, N.J. — An ex-aide to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie at the Port Authority on Friday disputed the governor’s account of his knowledge of the September lane closures on the George Washington Bridge.

In a letter, an attorney for David Wildstein, the Port Authority executive who ordered the lane closures, wrote that “evidence exists … tying Mr. Christie to having knowledge of the lane closures, during the period when the lanes were closed, contrary to what the Governor stated publicly in a two-hour press conference … ”

The letter, addressed to Port Authority officials who have declined to pay Wildstein’s legal bills, marks the first time that someone within the Christie administration has implicated the governor directly to the scandal.

“Mr. Wildstein contests the accuracy of various statements that the Governor made about him and he can prove the inaccuracy of some,” Wildstein’s attorney, Alan Zegas wrote.

The letter does not specify what evidence Wildstein has, and it does not say whether Christie knew of the reasons for the lane closures. Christie has previously said he believed the closures were part of a legitimate traffic study. Wildstein’s attorney has publicly said his client would tell his side of the story if he was granted immunity from criminal prosecution by New Jersey, New York and the U.S. Department of Justice.

Asked if the U.S. Attorney’s Office was aware of Wildstein’s attorney’s allegations and whether it was investigating Christie’s possible knowledge of the lane closures, spokeswoman Rebekah Carmichael said, “We can’t discuss the specifics of an ongoing inquiry.”

Wildstein went to high school with Christie. The governor recommended him for a newly created position at the Port Authority, director of interstate capital projects, in 2010. Wildstein had a reputation as fiercely loyal political operative inside the bi-state agency. It was Wildstein who orchestrated the lane closures after he received an email from Christie’s deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, that stated: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”

In his press conference just before Wildstein was set to testify for a legislative panel investigating the lane closures, the governor announced that he had fired Kelly and he said he did not have a close relationship with Wildstein. He said he didn’t find out about the lane closures until they were reversed.

“There’s no way that anybody would think that I know about everything that’s going on, not only in every agency of government at all times, but also every independent authority that New Jersey either has on its own or by state — both with New York, with Pennsylvania and with Delaware. So what I can tell you is if people find that hard to believe, I don’t know what else to say except to tell them that I had no knowledge of this — of the planning, the execution or anything about it — and that I first found out about it after it was over.”

The Record newspaper has Port Authority photos showing the governor and Wildstein together on the Sept. 11 anniversary, on the third day of the lane closures.

Christie was asked at a Dec. 13 press conference announcing the resignation of his top Port Authority executive whether the lane closures and the problems they caused in Fort Lee were ever brought to his attention the week the lanes were closed.

“Never. No,” the governor said. He added later that the first time he heard about the issue was when an internal email by the executive director was leaked to the media weeks after the closures. “It was certainly well after the whole thing was over before I heard about it.”

Last week, the Port Authority denied Wildstein’s request that the agency pay for his legal representation as multiple investigations unfold, including one by the U.S. Attorney in New Jersey. The Port Authority’s lawyer wrote to Wildstein that paying his legal bills “would not be warranted under the Port Authority’s by-laws.”

The letter released Friday was a response to that decision.

“I would request that you kindly reconsider the Port Authority’s decision to deny Mr. Wildstein payment of his legal fees and indemnification,” it said, adding that the Port Authority did not offer a reason for the denial.

In an indication of fractures between Christie’s former allies, Wildstein’s attorney also questioned why a request for legal representation by Bill Baroni, Christie’s top executive at the Port Authority, was still under consideration. Baroni, Zegas wrote, told a committee, while not under oath, that the lane closures were part of a traffic study, “answers directly at variance with” the subsequent sworn testimony of the agency’s executive director, Pat Foye.

Wildstein’s attorney also included references to other controversies that have bubbled up, but did not say whether he had information about them. Wildstein was intimately involved with internal deliberations of Christie’s inner circle at the Port Authority, including with Baroni and Chairman David Samson.

“Subsequent to Mr. Wildstein testifying, there have been reports that certain Commissioners of the Port Authority have been connected directly or indirectly to land deals involving the Port Authority, that Port Authority funds were allocated to projects connected to persons who supported the administration of Governor Chris Christie or whose political support he sought, with some of the projects having no relationship to the business of the Port Authority, and that Port Authority funds were held back from those who refused to support the Governor.”

Wildstein’s attorney also wrote that a Port Authority lawyer advised Baroni before he went before the legislative committee and defended what he described as a traffic study. “The counseling, as I understand it, was conducted over a period of four to five days, and Mr. Wildstein was present for much of it.” The letter does not name the attorney who advised Baroni, but Christie has placed several attorneys tied to his administration in the Port Authority’s legal department.

The release of the letter came days before a critical moment in the legislative investigation into the lane closures. Responses to 20 subpoenas issued by a joint panel are due Monday, but at least one key player challenged the authority of the committee’s demands for documents.

The lawyer representing Christie’s former campaign manager Bill Stepien sent a lengthy letter to the legislative panel Friday invoking his client’s constitutional protection against self-incrimination. The letter by attorney Kevin Marino cites an ongoing federal grand jury investigation and states that there’s a possibility that documents Stepien provides “might compel him to furnish a link in the chain of evidence that could be used to ensnare him in the ambiguous circumstances of a criminal prosecution.”

Stepien, Marino wrote, is innocent of any wrongdoing, criminal or otherwise.

Stepien is one of 18 individual who got subpoenas from a legislative panel investigating the September lane closures, apparently an act of political revenge. Assemblyman John Wisniewski said Friday that lawyers for most of the individuals have asked for time extensions or will provide documents on a rolling basis “within a reasonable timeframe.”

Wisniewski said he had not yet read Marino’s letter, which requested that the committee withdraw the supboena to Stepien, and said he would review it with the committee’s special counsel, former federal prosecutor Reid Schar. He said he does expect some documents to be handed over Monday.

“We’ll start getting some documents on Monday, and I think we’ll get a lot by the end of the week. Then we’ll have to start the intensive process of reviewing them,” said Wisniewski, a Democrat.

AFP Photo/Jeff Zelevansky