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Tag: u s attorney
Rep. Michael Grimm Of New York To Face Charges In Campaign Probe

Rep. Michael Grimm Of New York To Face Charges In Campaign Probe

By Lisa Mascaro and Michael A. Memoli, Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — A Republican congressman is expected to face charges in a long-running federal investigation into campaign irregularities, but will continue serving in office, his lawyer said Friday.

Rep. Michael R. Grimm, a combat Marine and former FBI agent who represents Staten Island and other parts of New York, has been under investigation for more than two years in what his attorney called a “politically motivated vendetta.”

“The U.S. Attorney’s office has disclosed its intent to file criminal charges against Congressman Grimm,” attorney William J. McGinley said in a statement. “We are disappointed by the government’s decision, but hardly surprised…. Congressman Grimm asserts his innocence of any wrongdoing. When the dust settles, he will be vindicated.”

The U.S. attorney’s office in New York declined to comment.

Much of the congressman’s second term has been dogged by the investigation, which raised questions about his tough-on-crime image. His web site says that at the FBI, Grimm worked “tackling corruption in politics & beyond.”

Earlier this year, Grimm threatened to throw a New York TV reporter off a Capitol balcony after the journalist asked the congressman about the investigation. Grimm later apologized.

Democrats are certain to intensify their efforts to reclaim his seat this fall. President Barack Obama carried the district in 2012.

Investigations of Grimm surfaced amid reports, including in The New York Times, that fundraising for his first campaign came in part from his relation to an Israeli citizen who is an aide to an Orthodox rabbi, and may have violated limits on campaign giving — and prohibitions on giving by foreigners.

AFP Photo/Alex Wong

Fired Christie Aide Invokes 5th Amendment, Declines To Produce Subpoenaed Documents

Fired Christie Aide Invokes 5th Amendment, Declines To Produce Subpoenaed Documents

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

HACKENSACK, N.J. — Federal prosecutors investigating the George Washington Bridge lane closures have demanded documents from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s office, he said Monday, a development that puts him at the opposite end from the kind of probe he once led as the state’s hard-charging U.S. attorney.

Christie acknowledged the subpoenas during a radio interview Monday evening, as news broke that his former deputy chief of staff, Bridget Kelly, would not turn over documents in response to a subpoena issued by state lawmakers in a parallel investigation. An attorney for Kelly — who wrote the message “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” — cited Kelly’s constitutional protection against self-incrimination. She joins Christie’s campaign manager as the second person to put up a roadblock to an ongoing legislative probe.

But the fact that federal prosecutors sent a subpoena to Christie’s office signaled that the more high-stakes federal investigation had taken a serious turn for the governor who was considered a presidential contender only a few weeks ago. Christie emphatically told listeners of his monthly radio show that he didn’t know about the lane closures beforehand and pledged to get to the bottom of them as he cooperates with subpoenas from both the legislative panel and the U.S. attorney’s office.

“Before these lanes were closed I knew nothing about it,” he said on Ask the Governor on WKXW-FM Monday night. “I didn’t plan it. I didn’t authorize it. I didn’t approve it. I knew nothing about it.”

Christie spoke just two hours after the deadline for 18 individuals, his campaign and his office to respond to legislative subpoenas seeking emails, text messages and other documents related to the lane closures, which many Democrats believe were retribution against the Fort Lee mayor for not endorsing the Republican governor, who won re-election in a landslide last year.

Several individuals asked for extensions. But Michael Critchley Sr., an attorney for Kelly, notified the legislative panel Monday evening that she would not turn over documents. Kelly joins Christie’s former campaign manager, Bill Stepien, in invoking her constitutional right to protect against self-incrimination. Stepien’s attorney said Friday he would not turn over documents.

The information requested by the legislative panel, Critchley wrote Monday, “directly overlaps with a parallel federal grand jury investigation.” The letter also cites her right to privacy. In a brief phone interview, Critchley said his client had not received a subpoena from federal prosecutors.

Providing the committee with “unfettered access to, among other things, Ms. Kelly’s personal diaries, calendars and all of her electronic devices amounts to an inappropriate and unlimited invasion of Ms. Kelly’s personal privacy and would also potentially reveal highly personal confidential communications completely unrelated to the reassignment of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge,” Critchley wrote.

“I would hope they would share information, any information they have that would let me get to the bottom of it, but on the other hand, they have constitutional rights like everybody else and have the right to exercise them. There’s nothing I can do about that,” Christie said when asked on the radio program about her refusal to comply with the subpoena.

Christie, who said he fired Kelly because she lied to him, has also said he did not ask her why she apparently ordered the lanes closed.

The governor said he is cooperating with subpoenas from both the legislative panel and the U.S. attorney’s office. On the radio show he said his office began turning over documents to the Joint Legislative Select Committee on Investigations on Monday and will do so on a rolling basis as they are located.

An attorney for his campaign said earlier in the day it had received an extension while it seeks approval from the State Election Law Enforcement Commission to use campaign funds to pay for legal bills and to hire a document retention firm. The legislative panel also granted an extension to Christina Genovese Renna, who served as director of intergovernmental affairs under Kelly until she resigned Friday.

Christie also used the radio show to dispute a former political appointee’s assertion that he knew about the closures when they happening and said he hired a high-powered law firm to carry out a swift investigation so he can get answers.

“I can’t wait for them to be finished so I can get the full story here,” he said.

Christie didn’t rule out that he might have heard about traffic but said he didn’t know there was a problem until Patrick Foye, executive director of the Port Authority, sent an internal email, which was leaked to the press, questioning the closures.

Though the governor spoke at length about the September traffic jam, most callers to the show were seeking information on other issues and Christie worked to put the incident behind him saying he met with Democratic Senate President Stephen Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto for an hour and a half Monday to talk about their agenda for the year.

“They and I understand that our job is to run the state of New Jersey,” he said.

There was no mention on the show of criticism from Environment New Jersey that Christie’s administration pushed for a natural gas pipeline through the pinelands, a protected area, because Genovese Renna’s husband works for the company. A spokesman for the governor called the idea “ludicrous” and a company spokesman said Renna, president of South Jersey Industries, had nothing to do with the utility subsidiary responsible for the project.

In a joint statement Democratic Assemblyman John Wisniewski and Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, also a Democrat, who co-chair the legislative committee, said Monday that “numerous extensions have been granted to subpoena recipients.” Weinberg said she did know who was given extensions and a spokesman for Wisniewski declined to provide additional information.

“No documents will be released today,” the statement said. “The committee will announce its next step as soon as that course is decided.”

In an interview, Weinberg said the committee was discussing the decisions by Kelly and Stepien to invoke the Fifth.

“It’s frustrating when we’re trying to find the truth of the situation that started with the governor saying he was going to cooperate and urge others to do the same,” Weinberg said. “Obviously, we’ll have to keep plugging away.”

Four Republican committee members — Assemblywomen Holly Schepisi and Amy Handlin, Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll and Sen. Kevin O’Toole — sent a letter to the chairs Monday seeking equal access to documents and information.

Schepisi said Monday she learned that the committee’s special counsel, Reid Schar, had met with the U.S. attorney’s office after reading it in The Record newspaper over the weekend. Wisniewski and Weinberg released a statement from Schar about the Friday meeting to the media on Saturday.

Schepisi said all of the members of the committee — and not just the chairs — should be receiving regular updates for the sake of “transparency, openness, fairness and ensuring that our committee is not abusing power as it’s investigating abuse of power.”

Weinberg said she thought Schar’s statement went to all members of the committee and that the Republicans would get equal access to the documents once they come in.

The lane closures have shaken up the governor’s inner circle. Christie fired Kelly and cut ties with Stepien after he called the Fort Lee mayor an “idiot” in an email. Wildstein and Bill Baroni, who Christie named deputy executive director of the Port Authority, have both resigned. Wildstein and Baroni were also subpoenaed.

In a letter Friday, Wildstein’s attorney said “evidence exists” that Christie knew about the closures when they happened. Christie denied the allegation Monday after his staff sent an email attacking Wildstein’s credibility Saturday.

AFP Photo/Jim Watson

Christie Office Strikes Pay Deal With Defense Attorney In Bridge Scandal Probes

Christie Office Strikes Pay Deal With Defense Attorney In Bridge Scandal Probes

HACKENSACK, N.J. — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s office has agreed to pay a high-powered attorney $650 per hour to represent it in a series of investigations into the George Washington Bridge lane closures.

That’s more than a 40 percent discount off attorney Randy Mastro’s normal rate, he wrote in a letter to state officials, and 20 percent less than the average amount charged by attorneys at the New York office of his firm, Gibson Dunn.

The terms of Mastro’s agreement were laid out in documents released by the governor’s office late Thursday in response to a public records request. A retention letter states that Mastro will help Christie’s office in several ways — including producing documents in connection with an investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The reference to producing documents for the U.S. Attorney’s Office is the clearest indication that Christie’s office either has received, or anticipates receiving, a subpoena from federal prosecutors looking into whether a crime was committed. The state Republican Party and Christie’s re-election campaign confirmed earlier this month that they had received federal subpoenas but there has been no public confirmation of others.

Several people within Christie’s inner circle have also received subpoenas for documents by a joint legislative panel investigating the lane closures. The responses to those subpoenas are due on Monday. The attorney advising the investigative legislative panel, former federal prosecutor Reid Schar, is charging $350 per hour, also a discounted rate.

The biggest political crisis of Christie’s political career has also provided work for some of the biggest names in the region’s legal circles. Much of the cost is likely to be borne by taxpayers, although the Port Authority announced earlier this month that it would not pay the legal bills of the Christie ally and Port Authority executive who implemented the lane closures, David Wildstein.

Mastro’s retention letter, signed by him on Thursday, states that he will help the governor’s office review its 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 … requests for information.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office announced its review after emails and messages, first published by The Record, showed Christie’s deputy chief of staff wrote to a Christie ally at the Port Authority: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” Christie fired that staffer, Bridget Anne Kelly, along with his longtime adviser and campaign manager, Bill Stepien, who also surfaced in the messages.

Christie apologized after the messages surfaced and said he was deceived. He has said that he believed the lane closures were part of a legitimate traffic study, although hundreds of documents provided in response to previous legislative subpoenas indicate joy at the resulting traffic paralysis in Fort Lee and disdain for the town’s mayor, a Democrat who declined to endorse the governor.

The documents released Thursday do not indicate whether Mastro will represent all of the office’s individual staffers, many of whom have received subpoenas. The documents say that Mastro is representing “the Office of the Governor.”

Christie announced he was hiring Mastro, a former New York City deputy mayor under Rudy Giuliani, on Jan. 16 but did not announce details of the agreement. Mastro is also representing the Port Authority in a lawsuit by a motorist advocacy group, AAA New York, alleging that increases in tolls are illegal. Mastro’s prior arrangement with the Port Authority, an agency jointly run by Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, prompted some inside the Port Authority to question whether the attorney had a conflict of interest.

“Neither Gibson Dunn nor the Office of the Governor of New Jersey considers it a conflict,” states the retention letter, signed by Assistant Attorney General Robert T. Lougy.

Mastro is head of litigation for Gibson Dunn’s New York office. His letter suggests that his hourly rate is normally more than $1,000.

That rate, a threshold that was almost never crossed just a few years ago, is now routine for partners at major law firms, experts have said.

One of Mastro’s partners, Ted Olsen, had a publicly disclosed rate of $1,800 – probably one of the highest billing rates in the country, said David Lat, the founder and managing editor of the legal blog Above the Law.

“When a matter is high profile, sensational or when a lot of money is at stake, you will see this convergence of major law firms and lawyers,” said Lat, a former federal prosecutor who worked under Christie when he was the state’s U.S. Attorney. “Part of it is you don’t want to show up to a gunfight without proper weaponry.”

Mastro wrote in his letter that the $650 per hour rate, which will apply to all attorneys at his firm who bill the governor’s office, could be revisited after three months. He added: “It is a privilege for us to represent the Office of the Governor of the State of New Jersey.”

AFP Photo/Eric Thayer

U.S. Attorney Subpoenas Christie Campaign, GOP State Committee

U.S. Attorney Subpoenas Christie Campaign, GOP State Committee

New York (AFP) – New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s re-election campaign and the state’s Republican Party committee have been served subpoenas from federal prosecutors investigating a scandal over the deliberate shutdown of a key bridge to spite a political rival, an attorney confirmed Thursday.

“We can confirm that the Christie for Governor reelection campaign and the New Jersey Republican State Committee received subpoenas for documents from the U.S. attorney’s office” in New Jersey, Mark D. Sheridan, a lawyer with the law firm representing the two entities, told AFP Thursday.

These latest subpoenas come “in addition to the subpoena the campaign previously received from the state legislative committee,” which is conducting a parallel investigation, Sheridan said.

“All three subpoenas focus on the closure of lanes on the George Washington Bridge,” he said.

Christie, regarded as a frontrunner for the Republican presidential campaign in 2016, has been on the defensive since it emerged his office was behind the shutting down of lanes on the George Washington Bridge in September.

The closures were apparently meant to punish a mayor who refused to endorse Christie’s successful reelection bid.

Christie maintains he had been unaware of any political motive behind the action.

After the scandal emerged, he quickly sacked a senior assistant.

“The campaign and the state party intend to cooperate with the U.S. attorney’s office and the state legislative committee and will respond to the subpoenas accordingly,” Sheridan said.

Some twenty people and entities last week received subpoenas from the committee.

Adding to Christie’s woes, the Democratic mayor of Hoboken, New Jersey, Dawn Zimmer, accused New Jersey’s lieutenant governor over the weekend of threatening to withhold money for Hurricane Sandy relief from her Democratic stronghold city unless she approved a redevelopment plan which Christie supported.

Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno has categorically denied the accusations.

Photo: Walter Burns via Wikimedia Commons