Gov. Christie's Political Problems Just Grew To GWB Traffic Jam Sized Proportions

After months of denying that he or his staff had anything to do with the George Washington Bridge lane closures that caused massive traffic jams in Fort Lee and caused a public safety mess for the city or that the lane closures were politically motivated, new emails and text messages that were sought by The Record reveal that there were, in fact, political motivations involved.

The messages are replete with references and insults to Fort Lee’s mayor, who had failed to endorse Christie for re-election and they chronicle how they tried to reach Port Authority officials in a vain effort to eliminate the paralyzing gridlock that overwhelmed his town of 35,000 which sits in the shadow of the bridge, the world’s busiest.

The documents obtained by The Record raise serious doubts about months of claims by the Christie administration that the September closures of local access lanes to the George Washington Bridge were part of a traffic study initiated solely by the Port Authority. Instead, they show that one of the governor’s top aides was deeply involved in the decision to choke off the borough’s access to the bridge, and they provide the strongest indication yet that it was part of a politically-motivated vendetta—a notion that Christie has publicly denied.

“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” Bridget Anne Kelly, one of three deputies on Christie’s senior staff, wrote to David Wildstein, a top Christie executive at the Port Authority, on Aug. 13, about three weeks before the closures. Wildstein, the official who ordered the closures and who resigned last month amid the escalating scandal, wrote back: “Got it.”

Other top Christie associates mentioned in or copied on the email chain, all after the top New York appointee at the authority ordered the lanes reopened, include David Samson, the chairman of the agency; Bill Stepien, Christie’s re-election campaign manager and the newly appointed state GOP chairman; and Michael Drewniak, Christie’s spokesman.

Christie has previously said that no one in his staff or campaign was involved in the lane closings, and he has dismissed questions about political retribution by joking that he moved the traffic cones himself.

While Gov. Christie's pal David Wildstein has already been sacked and Bob Baroni, who was Christie's top pick at the Port Authority resigned, the emails reveal that the traffic mess was initiated by those in Christie's inner circle.

This shows just how petty that Christie's staffers were in a race that was never going to be all that close.

Not only do the Governor's political appointees at the Port Authority need to be scrutinized for their actions, but the state needs to hold Gov. Christie accountable for this act of partisan hackery that undermined public safety in Fort Lee - all because the mayor wasn't going to endorse the Governor across party lines.

The governor not only needs to apologize to Fort Lee residents, but he needs to clean house of his staffers who went down this path.

I'm sure that local politicians are looking at whether criminal charges could be filed in relation to interfering with public safety by engaging in a political vendetta against the mayor.

It's possibly actionable under the state's Code of Criminal Justice. Various charges could include violating the Execution of Public Duty under 2C:3-3, Crime of corruption of public resources under 2C:27-12, and Obstructing Highways and Other Public Passages under 2C:33-7.

As with the NJ Transit rail fleet flooding debacle, Gov. Christie has let those involved get off easy. That has stop. He has to hold those involved accountable, and he has to take responsibility himself for these actions. Every day that he lets these staffers stay on in Trenton is another day that this scandal grows.

And I'm saying this as someone who voted for Christie. He personally did well in the Sandy aftermath excluding the NJ Transit rail fleet flooding flap, but this action has parallels to the NJ Transit mess. He's let his underlings/staffers get off without so much as a slap on the wrist for engaging in actions that put state assets at risk (in the NJT instance) and lives at risk (in GWB lane closures).

He's got to fire those involved and allow the AG or federal prosecutors to investigate this fully. You can't engage in a political vendetta like this, where lives can be put at risk - and Fort Lee documented how police, fire and EMS were unable to respond quickly due to the traffic jams that blocked most of the city as a result of the lane closures to the bridge.

Cross posted at LGF.

Heads Roll at Port Authority Over GWB Traffic Jam

The Port Authority is a bistate agency that handles interstate transit projects between New York and New Jersey. Its top officials are nominated by the governors of New York and New Jersey. Back in September, David Wildstein headed up a supposed traffic study that limited local traffic from entering the George Washington Bridge to a single toll lane. That compared to three toll lanes previously.

The "study" lasted several days, before it was put to an end. The fallout from the traffic jam that left Fort Lee's downtown paralyzed for hours each day and threatened public safety to the point that fire engines, police cars, and ambulances were stuck with no way to get to their destinations. There was no good response from the Port Authority as it stonewalled at every opportunity. It then took the state legislature to subpoena officials to begin to get to the bottom of the story.

Those involved in setting this up instructed anyone involved not to tell anyone outside the agency, because it would have serious fallout. They were right, of course, but not in the way they thought.

The fallout from the study continues today, with Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey firing Bill Baroni, the Executive Director of the Port Authority. Christie's trying to frame this as a routine move, even as acknowledging that the traffic moves were improperly done and that one thing has nothing to do with the other:

Christie’s appointees say the lane closures were part of a traffic study, but they have admitted they did not follow normal protocol for conducting such a study.

The Republican governor today agreed that the lane closures – which jammed the town’s traffic for hours each morning -- were not conducted properly.

“When mistakes are made, people have to be held accountable for them,” said Christie.

Critics have suggested the lane closures were a political move by Christie’s appointees after the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee chose not to endorse Christie during the gubernatorial election.

Christie dismissed those allegations as “a whole lot of hullabaloo” and insisted that Baroni’s resignation is not a result of the controversy. He said Baroni, who has worked at the Port Authority for four years, was already planning to resign.

“Four years at the Port Authority as [deputy executive director] is enough for anybody,” Christie said. The governor said he has not directly spoken with Baroni recently.

Baroni, a former state senator, did not attend the news conference, and he did not respond to a request for comment.

In his place, Christie is appointing Deb Gramiccioni, his deputy chief of staff for policy and planning. Gramiccioni has a reputation for stamping out wasteful government spending and going after public corruption.

It certainly appears that the decision was politically motivated to go after Fort Lee. The hearings so far have indicated that there was no plan for how to address the closure, no warning to commuters, and that the effect of the study could have been done with a computer simulation, avoiding the problem altogether.

No one specifically said it was politically motivated, but the reading between the lines is highly suggestive.

The alternative is that there was gross incompetence.

That Christie canned Baroni today, and accepted the resignation of David Wildstein effective end of the year, also shows that this was politically motivated. Christie's trying to limit the political fallout.

The Port Authority is a den of political appointees by design - NY and NJ both designate appointees, so people who are politically connected are chosen for top spots - and the positions are essentially evenly split between NY and NJ appointees.

The surprising thing is that Christie canned Baroni today, but had no problem keeping on NJ Transit's James Weinstein, whose rail team put the rail fleet in a position to be flooded out during Sandy costing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, reduced the rail schedule for months, and no one was fired - there was one person who was demoted, but that was a minor underling.

By his own logic, he should have held Weinstein accountable for the NJ Transit rail debacle. But he hasn't and wont.