Christie’s load of bull
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s onehour-and-forty-seven-minute self-serving, self-pitying display of contrition on Thursday was a climactic act in a brazen cover-up that threatens to further unravel his political career. Ever so thoroughly the governor scoured the thesaurus for words of apology, regret and painless self-flagellation while nervily playing the victim and mercilessly destroying the aide who played only a supporting role for the George Washington Bridge political revenge plot.
Christie needed blood to express his outrage to the public, so he drew it from deputy chief of staff Bridget Kelly for the sin, the governor said, of lying to him. Perhaps, Kelly did lie, although it seems incredible that anyone would flat-out attempt to deceive an intense, emergency inquiry.
Regardless, Christie made roadkill of Kelly and his former campaign manager while wholly exempting the close pals who were central to the lane-closure conspiracy that caused four days of gridlock and dangerously slowed emergency response in Fort Lee. Pathetic.
The governor gave three truly guilty parties, David Wildstein, Bill Baroni and David Samson, passes. Each is a Christie lieutenant who held a high position at the authority. While their exact roles are still hidden — and Christie saw no reason to inquire about them — each either engineered, concealed or did nothing about the interstate transportation outrage.
Wildstein took the Fifth Amendment before a New Jersey legislative committee shortly after Christie concluded his sad-a-thon. Call it luck for the governor, or call it loyal service by a political hatchet man hoping for even a small shred of a repaid favor sometime in the future.
Wildstein’s subpoenaed emails put the lie to claims that the Port Authority shut the lanes as part of a misguided traffic study. In truth, the closures were pure payback to Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich for not endorsing Christie’s reelection. Sokolich is a Democrat; Christie is a Republican.
The governor and Wildstein go way back — all the way back to high school, although Christie disowned his friend Thursday, implying Wildstein had been one of the dweebs while he had been one of the cool guys back then.
They were close enough that Christie installed Wildstein as the authority’s director of interstate capital projects. Wildstein had no qualifications for such a post. Who cares? It was a made-up assignment. He functioned as Christie’s $150,000-a-year spy and disciplinarian.
Challenged, Wildstein would typically respond, “Do you know who I am?”
When PA Executive Director Pat Foye, a Gov. Cuomo appointee, got wind of the traffic nightmares after four days, thanks to a reporter’s inquiry, he sent emails to the official responsible for the bridge and to that official’s boss at 6 a.m.
They reported back that Wildstein had ordered the lanes shut with directions to alert no one, including cops, firefighters and Foye. Not only that, Wildstein showed up early on the morning of the first day of the closures to inspect the chaos.
Foye ordered the lanes opened and reported Wildstein’s actions to the departed Baroni, who was Christie’s appointee as PA deputy executive director, and to Samson, who remains Christie’s appointee as authority chairman.
Right then and there, both men had a duty to inform the governor about what had happened and to take disciplinary action. Key question: What did they tell Christie? He says nothing.
What’s clear is that Baroni concocted a blatant lie about a traffic study, and Samson took no known action. Then, on Oct. 1, the Wall Street Journal revealed that Foye had angrily informed all of them as to Wildstein’s actions. Christie saw the story and did worse than nothing.
He made light of the facts, choosing to mock the hidden truth and promote the traffic study fable. He continued to promote that fiction Thursday, although no one has ever seen such a report. This editorial page has asked for the pleasure ever since Dec. 17.
As we said then: “Christie’s tale won’t wash unless he produces the document.”
Former deputy chief of staff Kelly was the most convenient sacrificial lamb because her words damningly opened the released communications:
“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” she wrote. She deserved to be fired, but Christie owed the public much more. Despite his supposedly aggressive effort to get the facts, the governor has not questioned her about the closure, nor given any indication that he is conducting the wider inquiry necessary — not that he would be trusted now if he were to do so.
The independent investigation that remains to be done will reveal that he infected the Port Authority with political thuggery, identify who concocted the lane closure scheme (including all communications between Wildstein and Christie) and disclose all the machinations that took place as Christie hoped to evade responsibility for screwing tens of thousands of people and endangering almost as many while he searched for an open lane to the White House.