Ex-Christie aide testifies ‘traffic problems’ email not payback
NEWARK, N.J. — A federal prosecutor grilled a former aide to Gov. Chris Christie on her words and deeds surrounding the 2013 George Washington Bridge lane-closing scandal Tuesday, seeking to poke holes in her portrayal of herself as unaware of the alleged political retaliation plot and too frightened of her superiors to come forward.
The cross-examination of Bridget Kelly pitted the former deputy chief of staff to the GOP governor against what amounted to an electronic version of herself: emails and text messages she sent and received before and during the September 2013 lane realignment at the bridge connecting New Jersey and New York, which caused epic gridlock in the town of Fort Lee.
Kelly and Bill Baroni, a former executive with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the bridge’s operator, are charged with crimes including misusing Port Authority property to create traffic jams to punish Fort Lee’s mayor for not endorsing Christie’s reelection.
Of the two, Kelly gained more notoriety when emails surfaced in 2014 because she sent the nowinfamous “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” message to former Port Authority official David Wildstein.
Wildstein pleaded guilty and testified against Kelly and Baroni.
Christie has denied knowledge of the plot and has not been charged, though Kelly testified Monday she told him a month before the lane closings happened that they were to be part of a traffic study. She also testified that she talked to him about them twice while they were ongoing.
On cross-examination, Kelly repeated her testimony from Friday that she used a poor choice of words in the email to Wildstein. Kelly testified she believed it was a legitimate study.
“‘Problem’ doesn’t mean study, does it?” pushed back Assistant U.S. Attorney Vikas Khanna.
“It meant that would be the effect” of the traffic study, Kelly said, adding, “David had told me the benefits were going to outweigh the inconvenience.”
Khanna said: “If you are creating problems in Fort Lee, you are making things worse in Fort Lee.”
Khanna also punctuated his questions about the text and emails by eliciting that Kelly deleted them on her own. Kelly has testified that she deleted them months later when it appeared others who had knowledge of the closures weren’t being truthful.
“I was scared and I didn’t know what was happening,” she said. “When everyone started forgetting what they knew, I started deleting, yes.”