CHRISTIE’S CASTOFF HIRED
Trump hires aide Christie cut ties with over bridge scandal
NEWARK >> President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday hired a political adviser Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie cut ties with two years ago in the fallout from the George Washington Bridge lane-closing scandal.
Trump announced Bill Stepien will fill the position of deputy assistant to the president and political director.
Stepien, a close adviser who served as Christie’s campaign manager in 2009 and 2013, wasn’t charged in the so-called “Bridgegate” case. But his name cropped up repeatedly during testimony in the trial last fall of two former Christie allies charged in a political retaliation scheme.
David Wildstein, the government’s star witness who pleaded guilty, testified Stepien knew about the plan to close traffic lanes near the bridge in September 2013 to create gridlock to punish a Democratic mayor who didn’t endorse Christie.
Bridget Kelly, Christie’s former deputy chief of staff and a Stepien protege, and Bill Baroni, a top Christie appointee to the bridge authority, were convicted in November. Stepien’s attorney has said his client had no role in the scheme or an ensuing cover-up.
When thousands of pages of emails and texts related to the case were released in early 2014, Christie fired Kelly and cut ties with Stepien, asking
him to withdraw a bid to become the next state GOP chairman.
At the time, Christie said he was disturbed by the “callous indifference” displayed by Stepien in some of the emails. Other emails appeared to show Wildstein and Kelly mocking the Fort Lee mayor’s increasingly desperate pleas for relief from the traffic jams.