EATING HIS WORDS
Christie ‘lied, laughed’ about Bridgegate
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie not only knew about a traff ic jam engineered to punish the mayor of Fort Lee, he laughed about it, former ally David Wildstein testified yesterday. But Christie insisted that there’s no proof he was aware of the plot.
One of Chris Christie’s closest pals testified Tuesday that not only did the New Jersey governor know his lackeys were snarling traffic around the George Washington Bridge — he had a big belly laugh over it.
Blowing the lid off Christie’s three years of denials that he was aware of the 2013 plot, David Wildstein, the state’s former No. 2 man at the Port Authority, publicly stated that the governor knew what was going on — and heartily condoned it.
Wildstein told a federal jury in Newark that the Republican governor guffawed as Wildstein and PA boss Bill Baroni gleefully “bragged” to him about “the tremendous amount of traffic’’ they had just created in Fort Lee as revenge aginst its Democratic mayor, Mark Sokolich, for not endorsing Christie’s re-election.
The men yukked it up at a Sept. 11 memorial service at Ground Zero while thousands of motorists were trapped in hourslong delays — and Sokolich begged for relief, citing safety concerns.
“Baroni said to Gov. Christie, ‘There’s a tremendous amount of traffic in Fort Lee this morning,’ ” Wildstein testified, noting that his PA boss was using “a sarcastic tone.”
“You will be pleased know that Mayor Sokolich is very frustrated because he can’t get his telephone calls returned,” Baroni added, according to Wildstein.
“[Christie] responded by saying that, ‘I imagine he wouldn’t be getting his phone calls returned,’ ” Wildstein said.
Baroni assured Christie, “I was monitoring the traffic, I was watching over everything,” Wildstein said.
This prompted the governor to refer to Wildstein by the “Wally Edge” pseudonym the aide used on his acerbic political Web site PolitckerNJ and snark, “I’m sure Mr. Edge would never do anything political,’’ Wildstein told jurors.
“And he laughed,” Wildstein said of Christie.
The governor briefly addressed the scandal during his monthly radio show Tuesday.
“I know I didn’t say that,” Christie said on NJ1015. “If they said to me there’s traffic . . . Why would that matter to me?”
The feds introduced photos of the three men chatting at the memorial as evidence, including some in which Christie is laughing.
Wildstein said he and Baroni later congratulated themselves on a job well done.
“Mr. Baroni and I discussed how pleased we were that the boss was happy,” he said. “I was happy that [Christie] was happy.”
Baroni and Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, are on trial on conspiracy and fraud charges for allegedly helping to orchestrate the scheme.
Wildstein, the admitted mastermind, has already pleaded guilty.
Christie is not charged, but Wildstein insisted that at the 9/11 memorial, the governor instructed his PA cronies to continue ignoring Sokolich, as well as the mayor of Jersey City, Steven Fulop, who also refused to endorse the governor’s re-election effort.
Then-PA Chairman David Samson later joined the trio’s conversation and mentioned to Christie that he had received a request to meet with Fulop, Wildstein said.
“Samson said to Governor Christie, ‘I have to meet with him. I’m the chairman of the Port Authority.’ Gov. Christie said no,” Wildstein testified.
After word of the scheme began leaking, Wildstein said he sought the advice of Michael DuHaime, a GOP strategist and Christie adviser.
“DuHaime told me that Gov. Christie must have thought Mr. Baroni and I were joking around. He said Gov. Christie would not have thought of that as funny,’’ Wildstein said.