Testimony: Christie pals OK’d gridlock, campaign chief knew
NEWARK, N.J. — A political revenge scheme to create traffic gridlock near the George Washington Bridge in 2013 was approved by two former allies of Republican Gov. Chris Christie on trial for fraud and shared with Christie’s then-campaign manager, the government’s key witness testified Monday.
David Wildstein also told jurors how he received the now-famous “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” email from Christie’s then-deputy chief of staff, Bridget Kelly, on Aug. 13, 2013, about a month before the town next to the bridge was engulfed in four days of epic traffic jams.
Kelly, who is expected to testify in her defense, has previously said some of her emails and texts from that period were meant to be sarcastic and were taken out of context.
But Wildstein, a former official at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey who has pleaded guilty, told jurors Monday he assumed it meant it was time to put the scheme in action to punish Fort Lee’s Democratic mayor, Mark Sokolich.
“I understood that to mean it was time to change the lanes configuration at the upper level of the George Washington Bridge in order to create traffic in the borough of Fort Lee,” Wildstein said. “We had had joking emails before. I did not think she was joking.”
According to Wildstein, the email set in motion a chain of events that ultimately led to last year’s indictment of Kelly and former Port Authority executive Bill Baroni on fraud, conspiracy and civil rights deprivation charges.
In the days and weeks that followed, he testified, he went to Port Authority officials and told them the story that the lane realignment was part of a traffic study. But he said he told at least two people the true reason: Bill Stepien, Christie’s manager for his 2013 re-election campaign, and William “Pat” Schuber, a Port Authority commissioner nominated by Christie in 2011.
Schuber testified before a New Jersey legislative committee in 2014 that he had no prior knowledge of the plot.
Democratic state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, who co-chaired the committee, called Monday’s revelation “personally disappointing” and said Schuber should resign if Wildstein is telling the truth.
A message left for Schuber at the Port Authority wasn’t immediately returned Monday.
Christie hasn’t been charged, but prosecutors say Wildstein will testify that he told the governor about the plot on the third of the four days of traffic chaos. Christie has denied that.
Both defendants say Wildstein conceived and carried out the scheme in September 2013. The bridge, one of the world’s busiest, spans the Hudson River and connects New Jersey with New York City.