Prosecutors try to show bridge defendants retaliated earlier

NEWARK >> A former aide to Gov. Chris Christie returned to the witness stand Tuesday in the George Washington Bridge lane-closing case as prosecutors sought to demonstrate she and a co-defendant collaborated to retaliate against a mayor in the months before they used the same tactic against a different mayor.

Under cross-examination by the government, Bridget Kelly testified she was told by superiors, on orders from the Republican governor, to cancel scheduled meetings with Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop in the summer of 2013. Fulop, a Democrat, was seen as a potential Christie endorser, Kelly testified, but when it became clear it wasn’t going to work out, she was told to cancel the meetings and have no more contact with him.

Kelly, Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, and Bill Baroni, former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey executive, face nine criminal counts each. They are accused of orchestrating lane closures at the bridge to create traffic jams in Fort Lee to punish its Democratic mayor, Mark Sokolich, for not endorsing Christie’s re-election bid.

Prosecutors contend Kelly, Baroni and former Port Authority official David Wildstein, who has pleaded guilty, even employed the same phrase — “radio silence” — in describing how both mayors would be ignored.

Striking a defiant tone in response to questions by a prosecutor, Kelly said the two situations were different. She said Wildstein’s “radio silence” email, sent during the four days of lane closures in September 2013 as Sokolich made increasing desperate pleas for help, “didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.”

“Mayor Fulop was ‘iced,’ you are correct, on orders from the governor,” Kelly told Assistant U.S. Attorney Vikas Khanna. “There was no reason to ignore Mayor Sokolich. To compare him to what was going on with Mayor Fulop is just wrong.”

Earlier testimony by Kelly raised questions about when Christie knew about the lane closures. On Monday, she testified she told Christie in mid-September, while the traffic jams were in progress, that Sokolich had expressed concerns about being targeted for political retribution. She said Christie lied three months later when he told reporters no one on his senior staff knew of the lane closures.

Christie hasn’t been charged.