Perdido 03

Perdido 03

Sunday, January 12, 2014

What Was Andrew Cuomo's Involvement In The Christie BridgeGate Scandal?

From Maggie Haberman at Politico:

The Wall Street Journal, ahead on the Bridgegate story throughout the scandal, reported in December that Christie reached out to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who co-controls the Port Authority, to ask him to turn down the heat on the internal review of what happened.

It was Cuomo’s appointee, Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye, who called out the Christie appointees about the lane closures in Fort Lee in real time, the subpeonaed documents reveal. And according to the Journal piece at the time, Christie asked Cuomo to have Foye back off, at a point when interest in the scandal was intensifying.

A Cuomo spokesman denied the call took place when the story came out, although the Journal stood by its story. There’s also been no indication that Foye eased his foot off the gas internally. Still, given that the two governors have had a decent working relationship and given their shared control over the agency, it’s within the realm of possibility that they spoke about an issue that was gaining press attention. What Cuomo was aware of has become a point of intrigue in Empire State circles.

Christie and Cuomo are potential rivals for the 2016 presidential race.

There's no reason for Cuomo not to want to stick the proverbial shiv into Christie now and weaken him via this scandal - and he had the leverage to do it.

I have a hard time seeing Cuomo looking to protect Christie in this matter or failing to capitalize on Christie's weakness as a result of it.

I can see Sheriff Andy giving Christie some niceties over the phone, then telling Foye and his own PA people to keep leaking, keep the pressure on.

Having watched Cuomo for a while now, that seems to be his M.O. - he's no less a "steamroller" than Spitzer, just slightly more subtle (or sneakier, if you will) about it.

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