U.S. Attorney subpoenas Christie campaign and GOP State Committee over bridge scandal
Gov. Chris Christie delivers his State of the State address in which he also discussed the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal. (Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-Ledgery)
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on January 23, 2014 at 1:40 PM, updated January 23, 2014 at 4:04 PM
The U.S. Attorney for New Jersey has issued a subpoena for documents to both the Christie for Governor reelection campaign and the New Jersey Republican State Committee, an attorney for both organizations confirmed today.
According to attorney Mark Sheridan, the subpoenas request documents from the two organizations in relation to the investigation into lane diversions at the George Washington Bridge in September.
Both organizations are represented by the law firm of Patton Boggs, which has offices in Newark. In a statement to NJ.com, Sheridan said the following:
"The Christie for Governor re-election campaign and the New Jersey Republican State Committee received subpoenas for documents from the U.S. Attorney's office, in addition to the subpoena the campaign previously received from the state legislative committee. All three subpoenas focus on the closure of lanes on the George Washington Bridge. The campaign and the state party intend to cooperate with the U.S. Attorney's office and the state legislative committee and will respond to the subpoenas accordingly.''
Calls to both the Christie reelection campaign and the state GOP committee for comment were not immediately returned.
The U.S. Attorney's subpoenas follow a round of 20 issued last week by the Assembly committee conducting its own investigation into the lane diversion scandal, which has quickly morphed into a nightmare for the governor.
Email records released earlier this month show a member of his administration was involved in the lane closures, from the beginning. While the Port Authority officials responsible for the controversy claimed the lane diversions were part of a traffic study, the email traffic hints it was done as a form of political retribution.
The governor is now facing potential federal involvement on two fronts. Last night, NBC reported FBI agents were questioning Hoboken employees in connection with claims from Mayor Dawn Zimmer that the administration threatened to choke off Hurricane Sandy relief if she failed to support a development project favored by the governor.
Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, who Zimmer said issued the threat, has vehemently denied the accusation, but last night agents questioned two of Zimmer's closes advisors.
Meanwhile, the investigation by the Assembly committee is expected to merge Monday with the probe underway by a Senate committee. Response to the subpoenas issued in that investigation are due in early February.
To date, no evidence has surfaced that connects Christie himself to the lane closures, however, the scandal already has claimed the jobs of Port Authority officials Bill Baroni and David Wildstein as well as Christie administration Deputy Cheif of Staff Bridget Kelly, the staffer who was implicated by an email she sent in August apparently ordering the lane diversions.
"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee," she emailed a month before the lanes were diverted, to which Wildstein replied, "Got it."
The administration also cut ties with Christie's two-time campaign manager, Bill Stepien, who Christie said he had lost faith in after reading emails between Stepien and Wildstein showing Stepien discussing the media reaction to the lane closures with Wildstein.
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on January 23, 2014 at 3:56 PM, updated January 23, 2014 at 5:39 PM
According to attorney Mark Sheridan, the subpoenas request documents from the two organizations in relation to the investigation into lane diversions at the George Washington Bridge in September.
Both organizations are represented by the law firm of Patton Boggs, which has offices in Newark. In a statement to NJ.com, Sheridan said the following:
"The Christie for Governor re-election campaign and the New Jersey Republican State Committee received subpoenas for documents from the U.S. Attorney's office, in addition to the subpoena the campaign previously received from the state legislative committee. All three subpoenas focus on the closure of lanes on the George Washington Bridge. The campaign and the state party intend to cooperate with the U.S. Attorney's office and the state legislative committee and will respond to the subpoenas accordingly.''
Calls to both the Christie reelection campaign and the state GOP committee for comment were not immediately returned.
The U.S. Attorney's subpoenas follow a round of 20 issued last week by the Assembly committee conducting its own investigation into the lane diversion scandal, which has quickly morphed into a nightmare for the governor.
Email records released earlier this month show a member of his administration was involved in the lane closures, from the beginning. While the Port Authority officials responsible for the controversy claimed the lane diversions were part of a traffic study, the email traffic hints it was done as a form of political retribution.
The governor is now facing potential federal involvement on two fronts. Last night, NBC reported FBI agents were questioning Hoboken employees in connection with claims from Mayor Dawn Zimmer that the administration threatened to choke off Hurricane Sandy relief if she failed to support a development project favored by the governor.
Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, who Zimmer said issued the threat, has vehemently denied the accusation, but last night agents questioned two of Zimmer's closes advisors.
Meanwhile, the investigation by the Assembly committee is expected to merge Monday with the probe underway by a Senate committee. Response to the subpoenas issued in that investigation are due in early February.
To date, no evidence has surfaced that connects Christie himself to the lane closures, however, the scandal already has claimed the jobs of Port Authority officials Bill Baroni and David Wildstein as well as Christie administration Deputy Cheif of Staff Bridget Kelly, the staffer who was implicated by an email she sent in August apparently ordering the lane diversions.
"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee," she emailed a month before the lanes were diverted, to which Wildstein replied, "Got it."
The administration also cut ties with Christie's two-time campaign manager, Bill Stepien, who Christie said he had lost faith in after reading emails between Stepien and Wildstein showing Stepien discussing the media reaction to the lane closures with Wildstein.
Christie bridge scandal: Despite U.S. Attorney's subpoenas, N.J. lawmakers press forward
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on January 23, 2014 at 3:56 PM, updated January 23, 2014 at 5:39 PM
TRENTON — State lawmakers leading the legislative investigation of the George Washington Bridge lane closures today said they plan to proceed with their probes even as the U.S. Attorney is dropping subpoenas in the case.
State Assemblyman John Wisniweski (D-Middlesex) and state Sen. Loretta (D-Bergen) said they have not heard from the U.S. Attorney's office, which today issued a subpoena for documents to both the Christie for Governor reelection campaign and the New Jersey Republican State Committee.
“This is how the U.S. Attorney’s Office properly works. They do their business. They don’t put out press releases. They just do it,” Wisniewski said, before adding a swipe at how Gov. Chris Christie ran the office when he was the state’s top federal prosecutor: “You can contrast it with, perhaps, the way they used to work.”
"We plan to move ahead," Weinberg said. "If we received a request from the U.S. Attorney" to halt the committee's investigation, "We would discuss it with our attorney and seek his input."
Asked if he would stand down if the federal investigators request it, Wisniewski said the committee is “certainly not going to interfere with any investigation by the US attorney’s Office or any law enforcement agency.”
“That’s the best way I can say it,” he said.
Wisniewski said the investigation of a joint Senate and Assembly committee — expected to be formed Monday — is different in scope than what the U.S. Attorney appears to be looking at.
“Ours is not a criminal investigation. What the Legislature is doing is trying to figure out how we can change the rules so people can’t play the system the way it was in this circumstance,” Wisniewski said. “What we’re after is understanding more about how the mechanics could happen. How can a communication from the governor’s office to somebody at the Port Authority lead to lane closures that bypass existing agency protocols? Clearly, there’s something not in place that should be.”
Wisniewski said he doesn’t believe potential witnesses who received a subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s office have a rationale to refuse to respond to his committee.
"Our end goal is not prosecution," Wisniewski said. "Our end goal is fixing the laws so this can not happen again. And it’s not inconceivable that both agendas can proceed simultaneously.”
State Assemblyman John Wisniweski (D-Middlesex) and state Sen. Loretta (D-Bergen) said they have not heard from the U.S. Attorney's office, which today issued a subpoena for documents to both the Christie for Governor reelection campaign and the New Jersey Republican State Committee.
“This is how the U.S. Attorney’s Office properly works. They do their business. They don’t put out press releases. They just do it,” Wisniewski said, before adding a swipe at how Gov. Chris Christie ran the office when he was the state’s top federal prosecutor: “You can contrast it with, perhaps, the way they used to work.”
"We plan to move ahead," Weinberg said. "If we received a request from the U.S. Attorney" to halt the committee's investigation, "We would discuss it with our attorney and seek his input."
Asked if he would stand down if the federal investigators request it, Wisniewski said the committee is “certainly not going to interfere with any investigation by the US attorney’s Office or any law enforcement agency.”
“That’s the best way I can say it,” he said.
Wisniewski said the investigation of a joint Senate and Assembly committee — expected to be formed Monday — is different in scope than what the U.S. Attorney appears to be looking at.
“Ours is not a criminal investigation. What the Legislature is doing is trying to figure out how we can change the rules so people can’t play the system the way it was in this circumstance,” Wisniewski said. “What we’re after is understanding more about how the mechanics could happen. How can a communication from the governor’s office to somebody at the Port Authority lead to lane closures that bypass existing agency protocols? Clearly, there’s something not in place that should be.”
Wisniewski said he doesn’t believe potential witnesses who received a subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s office have a rationale to refuse to respond to his committee.
"Our end goal is not prosecution," Wisniewski said. "Our end goal is fixing the laws so this can not happen again. And it’s not inconceivable that both agendas can proceed simultaneously.”
SCANDALS AND INVESTIGATIONS OVERSHADOW CHRISTIE INAUGURAL
It was an Inauguration Day like no other, as Democratic leaders upstaged Gov. Chris Christie by announcing agreement on a joint committee to investigate Bridgegate and other alleged abuses of power by his administration just minutes before his inauguration, then trekked over to the War Memorial to listen to Christie deliver a speech that made no mention of the crises that threaten to cripple his second term.
“I’m not surprised at all,” Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) said with a shrug after Christie’s speech. “There’s no need to allude to it. Everybody in the world already knows what’s going on in the State of New Jersey.”
TV camera crews and national newspaper reporters clustered around Sweeney and Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) for the latest news on the investigation and Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer’s allegations, ignoring Christie’s speech with its message of bipartisanship, low taxes, and small government. Whatever campaign theme Christie was trying to convey to Iowa or New Hampshire voters no longer mattered.
Just two weeks ago, Christie was running neck-and-neck with Democrat Hillary Clinton in the presidential polls, planning a triumphal fundraising tour through Florida with Gov. Rick Scott, and preparing to celebrate his November reelection landslide with an Inaugural Gala on Ellis Island symbolically chosen to highlight his immigrant roots for the national media.
That was before emails showed that the order to shut down the George Washington Bridge lanes came out of the governor’s office, before Christie fired his deputy chief of staff and longtime campaign manager, before a legislative committee blanketed the governor’s office with subpoenas, and before the Hoboken mayor charged that Christie’s lieutenant governor had threatened to withhold Sandy aid if she did not approve a high-rise the governor wanted built.
Nowhere Fast
Yesterday, after two weeks of nonstop media coverage of the Christie administration scandals, a Quinnipiac Poll showed Christie trailing Clinton, his presidential drive “stuck in traffic, sideswiped by Bridgegate”; a top Virginia Republican called for Christie to resign his chairmanship of the Republican Governors Association for the good of the party; and a major snowstorm forced cancellation of the Ellis Island festivities for a party in no mood to party.
Christie took the oath of office in a forceful voice, but in his Second Inaugural Address, he seemed less ebullient than usual and content to reflect on the accomplishments of his first term, rather than looking ahead to offer a bold vision for the second.
“We have endured the worst economic recession of our lifetimes and we have begun to triumph over it. We have confronted entrenched interests and their endless stream of money that have previously stood in the way of fiscal sanity for our state, and educational excellence for our children,” Christie declared, taking a shot at public employee unions and especially the New Jersey Education Association. “Together, we have pushed those interests back, and put our children’s future first."
“We have survived the worst natural disaster in our state’s history and worked together to restore, renew and rebuild the state we love,” he said, declaring that New Jersey has been “setting the tone for an entire nation” by putting aside political partisanship and by being “willing to play outside the red and blue boxes the media and pundits put us in.”
Christie reiterated his low-tax, small-government mantra: “I do not believe that New Jerseyans want a bigger, more expensive government that penalizes success and then gives the pittance left to a few in the name of income equity,” he said. “For those who prefer economic growth and opportunity to government redistribution and higher taxes, I say this: come to New Jersey. You will be welcome here.”
Missing from Second Inaugural
Christie did not use his Second Inaugural Address to call upon Democrats to fulfill his 2009 campaign promise to pass an income tax cut, as he did in his second and third State of the State addresses.
Christie’s Second Inaugural offered none of the concrete pledges to cut state spending, curb municipal government, and cut red tape that highlighted his First Inaugural, with its proclamation that “Change has arrived!”
There was none of the ambition of his first State of the State speech, where he vowed “It’s time to do the big things” -- a full overhaul of pensions and health benefits, tenure reform, and a five-year business tax cut.
His Second Inaugural Address paled even by comparison with last week’s State of the State speech, in which he called for a longer school day and a longer school year, a constitutional amendment to end bail for violent offenders, and a call for new public employee concessions to reduce the burgeoning pension payments that are eating up the state budget.
Calling Christie’s speech “long on rhetoric and short on solutions,” Sweeney declared, “If the governor is honest about wanting to help all New Jerseyans, then let’s finally pass some of the initiatives I have been fighting for, like the Earned Income Tax Credit, restoring the Homestead Rebate, and asking millionaires to pay their fair share.”
It was the Democratic Legislature that seized the agenda yesterday with a joint Statehouse Annex press conference called by Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto (D-Hudson) just 45 minutes before Christie’s Inauguration to announce their agreement to set up a joint Senate and Assembly committee with subpoena powers to investigate Bridgegate and other allegations of abuses of power by the Christie administration. "We need to move forward in a unified way to get to the bottom of these issues that are seemingly growing every minute," said Sweeney.
Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Middlesex), whose Assembly Transportation Committee subpoenas produced the bombshell email showing that Bridget Kelly, the governor’s deputy chief of staff, ordered the George Washington Bridge lane closures, and Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen), who was the first to confront the Port Authority on the suspicious lane closures in Fort Lee, will co-chair the Joint Legislative Select Committee on Investigation.
Prieto and Sweeney said the Assembly and Senate would meet tomorrow to approve the new committee, and would ensure that the 20 subpoenas issued by Wisniewski’s Assembly Select Committee on Investigation last Thursday night would remain in place.
The committee members were not named yesterday, but in a nod to Wisniewski’s and the Assembly’s lead role in the investigation so far, Prieto and Sweeney have tentatively agreed that the panel will include eight Assembly members (five Democrats and three Republicans) and four senators (three Democrats and one Republican)
Subpoenaed documents are due on February 3 from the governor’s office, Christie’s current and incoming chief of staff, his top two communications aides, the deputy chief of staff and campaign manager he fired, his Port Authority chairman, and two top Port Authority officials directly involved in the bridge lane closures who have resigned, and other administration and Port Authority officials.
A Thumb in the Eye
Sweeney said the timing of the press conference right before the inauguration was not intentional. “The Speaker and I just concluded this 15 minutes ago,” Sweeney said. “This isn’t a thumb in the eye of the governor.”
Wisniewski, for one, has always signaled his expectation that the two houses would work together on a joint probe. In fact, Weinberg met Monday with Reid Schar, the special counsel the Wisniewski committee had already hired based on his successful prosecution of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on corruption charges, in the expectation that their two committee investigations would merge.
“We’re glad to come to this agreement where we can bring both the Assembly and the Senate together to work for the common purpose of getting to the bottom of the very thorny question of the abuse of power and the attempted coverup of that abuse of power,” Wisniewski said.
Wisniewski said it was “premature” for the new joint committee to launch an investigation of Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer’s charge that Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno threatened that the Christie administration would withhold Sandy aid from the city unless she won city council approval for a Rockefeller Group high-rise represented by the law firm of David Samson, Christie’s Port Authority chairman who has already been subpoenaed in the Bridgegate scandal.
“Clearly, she raises serious allegations,” Wisniewski said of Zimmer. “There’s a lot of facts swirling about with who said what when.”
But Wisniewski added that “the first order of business for this committee is to follow the information we have to date where we have somebody in the governor’s office abusing power, and we see attempts to cover up that abuse of power. We’ll follow that trail wherever it leads, but we’re not going to switch gears now and start following another investigation.”
Weinberg agreed. “In terms of the current subpoenas, we have a major question that’s out there: Who ordered Bridget Kelly to issue her email and why?” Weinberg asked, referring to the “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” email that Kelly sent to David Wildstein, a Christie appointee at the Port Authority. “We’re looking forward to seeing the documents in the first week in February when they’re due and we’re looking forward to getting answers to that as we move along on this road. I don’t know where it’s going to lead us, but I know we have a focus on where we started and we need to get to it.”
The Zimmer Diaries
Meanwhile, Zimmer, who met with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for two hours Sunday afternoon and handed over pages from a contemporaneous diary detailing Guadagno’s alleged threat and other related emails, released an April 23, 2013 letter she sent to Christie as further evidence that she has had concerns for a long time about political pressure to approve the Rockefeller Group project in exchange for Sandy aid.
Guadagno read a statement to the press in Union Beach Monday in which she denied the threat, and said Zimmer had “mischaracterized” their discussion about Hoboken development issues that day.
A spokesperson for Christie yesterday dismissed the importance of Zimmer's April 23 letter, saying, “With the latest shift in her ever-changing story, Mayor Zimmer continues to undermine her credibility, adding evolving and unsubstantiated claims with each media interview.”
Zimmer first made her allegations last Friday, the same day that the Wisniewski committee subpoenas began flooding into the governor’s office. The two events came on the eve of Christie’s two-day fundraising trip to Florida as chairman of the Republican Governors Association, a trip that was limited to private fundraisers after Gov. Rick Scott decided to cancel a planned public event where Christie would have been besieged by the national press corps.
Ken Cuccinelli, the losing GOP candidate for governor in Virginia last year, said on CNN’s “Crossfire” yesterday that Christie should step down as RGA chairman. “I think just from the perspective of setting aside this as an issue in other races it makes sense for him to step aside in that role,” Cuccinelli said. “He does not serve the goals of that organization by staying as chairman. And that doesn't mean any of the charges political or otherwise or substantive or not, it doesn't matter, perception is reality.”
Yesterday’s Quinnipiac Poll showed that perceptions of Christie are changing nationally. Christie now trails Clinton 46 percent to 38 percent, down from polls in both November and December that showed Christie with a slight lead.
"New Jersey Gov. Christopher Christie's 2016 presidential drive is stuck in traffic, sideswiped by Bridgegate, the George Washington Bridge traffic scandal," Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in releasing the poll results yesterday.
Fallout: New poll shows steep drop in Christie’s numbers in New Jersey after Bridgegate
POSTED AT 6:41 PM ON JANUARY 22, 2014 BY ALLAHPUNDIT
His job approval and favorable rating are still net positive — amazing resilience, really, for a Republican dogged by scandal in a blue state — but the gap is closing. Polls taken earlier this month in Jersey after Bridgegate broke showed minimal damage to him; this one, from theEagleton Center at Rutgers, shows that it’s now more severe. And this one was mostly conducted before the mayor of Hoboken accused him of withholding Sandy aid unless she approved a development project in which Christie was interested.
It’s hard to be “the electable candidate” if you’re not much more electable than your rivals. Christie’s not sunk yet, but if independents start to bail, hoo boy.
Following more than a year of strong bipartisan support, Christie’s favorability rating is now 46 percent favorable to 43 percent unfavorable, down from 65 percent favorable just before his landslide re-election. This drop in support is led by a 26-point decline among Democrats…Christie’s ratings drop is driven by a very large decline among Democrats while most Republicans – and many independents – continue to stand by the Governor. In November, 45 percent of Democrats were favorable, but with new challenges to Christie’s bipartisan leadership, only 19 percent of Democrats are now positive. Democratic approval of Christie’s job performance has dropped from 51 percent to 29 percent. While noticeably down from November, Republicans are still very positive: 78 percent feel favorable, and 83 percent approve of the job Christie is doing. Independent support has also dropped, but a majority continues to favor Christie…[O]nly a quarter of Democrats think Christie was unaware of his aides’ actions; instead, over half say it is very unlikely Christie was out of the loop. Moreover, 62 percent of Democrats do not believe at all Christie’s explanation for what happened.Whether or not they think Christie is telling the truth, New Jerseyans overwhelmingly blame Christie’s “tough-guy” persona for the conduct of his staff: more than 70 percent say the Governor’s attitude contributed at least somewhat to his staff’s reported behavior. Even six in ten Republicans believe Christie’s demeanor has at least somewhat encouraged these events.
Nine days ago, Monmouth had his job approval at 59 percent and his favorable rating at 44/28. Today Eagleton has them at 51 percent and 46/43, respectively. Among Democrats, it’s a bloodbath — they disapprove of his job performance overwhelmingly, 29/64, and view him unfavorably even more overwhelmingly at 19/69. You can, if you like, ignore that decline as inevitable: Just as Hillary’s sky-high bipartisan favorable rating has begun to sink now that it’s clear she’s the prime threat to the GOP in 2016, Christie’s support among Democrats would surely have sunk over time once he ran for president. All Bridgegate’s doing, arguably, is accelerating the process. Problem is, the acceleration hurts his big presidential pitch that he can get Democrats and indies to cross the aisle unlike anyone else in the GOP field. It’s fine for Democrats to turn on him but he’d much prefer that to happen later, after he’s got the nomination in hand. As it is, he now trails Hillary in New Jersey by 21 points — which, perHarry Enten, is actually a bigger deficit than Mitt Romney ended up with there against Obama in 2012. If that doesn’t change substantially before the GOP primaries, how does a guy who’s underperforming the previous nominee in his own state against a non-incumbent make the case that he’s Mr. Electable?
There’s always a chance Christie will rebound, but here’s an eye-popper from Eagleton suggesting why he won’t:
It’s a legit achievement for any blue-state Republican governor to stay at or around 50 percent approval for years on end but the legend of Christie’s allegedly unique bipartisan appeal is, obviously, mostly a product of Sandy. His numbers took off after the storm and now Bridgegate’s returned them to their pre-storm normal. How likely is it that he’ll give New Jersey Democrats a reason to start nudging them back up towards 60, especially once they’re eyeing him as an obstacle to holding the White House in 2016?
The keepers of the flame now are independents and moderates. The former currently split 60/33 on Christie’s job approval and 55/33 on his favorability; the latter split 53/40 and 45/41, respectively. As long as those numbers stay healthy, he can still make the “I can play on Democrats’ turf” argument. As for Latino and black voters, whom Christie took care to woo before the election to further polish his crossover cred, I’d love to give you the data but I can’t. Eagleton, oddly, didn’t provide it for those groups. For what it’s worth, the anecdotal evidence looks favorable to Christie. Stay tuned.
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