Christie Lawyer Points Finger at Deputy and Clears Christie

Christie Lawyer Points Finger at Deputy and Clears Christie

 

Law firm Gibson Dunn’s 360 page report into New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s “Bridgegate” scandal has been labelled a white wash by Christie’s critics.

The report, by Gibson Dunn lawyer Randy Mastro said Governor Christie, also a Republican presidential contender,  “had no involvement in the decision to close these lanes and no prior kowledge of it.”

The bridge shutdown occurred in September 2013 and involved lanes to the George Washington Bridge New Jersey being closed, creating traffic chaos.

The report said that the New Jersey Governor was the real victim in the Bridgegate scandal  and that Bridget Kelly, his former deputy, was the mastermind behind all of the drama in the Christie Administrative.

Mastro held a breaking news style report today broadcast in a live televised conference on all of the major news outlets in the US. The  report labels Kelly as a manipulative seductress that created the massive bridge closure because she was possibly scorned from a relationship with Bill Stepien.

Reuters reported:  “What we found was that Governor Christie had no involvement in the decision to close these lanes and no prior knowledge of it,” said attorney Randy Mastro of the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, which conducted the investigation.

Two key players who orchestrated the massive traffic jam were Bridget Anne Kelly, the governor’s former deputy chief of staff, and David Wildstein, a Christie appointee to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees the bridge, according to the report.

Their motive was to punish Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat whom Wildstein did not hold in high regard, Mastro told a press conference in New York. Fort Lee sits at one end of the George Washington Bridge, the nation’s busiest span, and the lane closures caused massive backups in the borough.

Results of the 10-week probe were met with skepticism by New Jersey Democrats, who have commissioned a bi-partisan panel to investigate the lane closures.

“Lawyers hired by and paid by the Christie administration itself to investigate the governor’s office, who then say the governor and most of his office did nothing wrong, will not be the final word on this matter,” said a statement from Assemblyman John Wisniewski and Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg.

Aside from the state investigation, a federal probe is under way by U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Paul Fishman.

Christie Denials

Christie has adamantly denied any prior knowledge of the plan, and in a pre-taped interview set to air on ABC late Thursday, the governor again said he was shocked by the actions of his former aides.

“Sometimes, people do inexplicably stupid things,” Christie said in excerpts released prior to the full interview.

Read more at Reuters here.

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