Christie's Port Authority Scandal Back In The News

NJ.com:

Amid lingering fallout from the George Washington Bridge lane closures, the Port Authority's top lawyer announced that he would step down at the end of next month.

Port Authority General Counsel Darrel Buchbinder, 68, sent a letter to agency colleagues Monday informing them of his "bitter-sweet" decision to retire after 36 years with the agency.

...

Buchbinder's decision to step down form his $277,000 -a-year job comes amid multiple investigations involving the bi-state agency and current and former officials following the 2013 George Washington Bridge lane closures.

They include civil and criminal probes by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Manhattan District Attorney's Office into the use of $1.8 billion in Port Authority funds on the Pulaski Skyway and other New Jersey infrastructure projects that Buchbinder's office signed off on.

Buchbinder, who has not been accused or any wrongdoing, is among several Port Authority lawyers for whom the agency has hired outside lawyers to represent them in the post-Bridgegate investigations.

Not related to the investigation into the Pulaski money?

Perhaps.

Or perhaps not.

Something to keep a watch on, at any rate.

Christie's got the Bridgegate trials coming up early next year, the David Samson/United investigation is still ongoing (with Christie's pal David Samson expected to be indicted in that case) and there's the Pulaski investigation still ongoing.

Christie likes to make like all his corruption problems are over.

They're not - not by a long shot.

US Attorney Mum On Christie

From NJ.com's update of US Attorney Paul Fishman's press conference:

Fishman is going over what David Wildstein pleaded guilty to and running down the charges against Baroni and Kelly. Calls it a "calculated scheme." Fishman added that the lane closures were a "political vendetta" against Fort Lee mayor Mark Sokolich.

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 Despite reporters' best efforts, Fishman won't talk about the governor.

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No one else is likely to be charged. "Based on evidence currently available, we aren't going to charge anyone else in the scheme," Fishman said.

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Baroni and Kelly will be arraigned at 11 a.m. Monday.

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Fishman said he won't talk about who else might have known about the lane closures.

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 There may come a time when officials will name un-indicted co-conspirators mentioned in indictments, Fishman said.

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Fishman won't say if Baroni and Kelly will be offered a similar deal to Wildstein.

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Fishman also won't discuss Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer's allegations against Christie.

Christie and his defenders will latch onto the "Based on evidence currently available, we aren't going to charge anyone else in the scheme" statement, but that doesn't mean Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Baroni won't provide it if they're offered a deal from the feds.

More later.

Multiple Indictments Expected To Be Announced Today In Bridgegate Investigation

From the Bergen Record:

Former Port Authority executive David Wildstein is expected to plead guilty to charges related to the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal today, as federal prosecutors prepare to announce developments in their nearly 16-month-old investigation.

Wildstein's appearance is scheduled for 11 a.m. before U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton in Newark followed by a press conference with federal authorities at 1 p.m. to discuss developments in the case. He arrived at the courthouse just before 9 a.m. looking considerably thinner than the last time he was in public.

A guilty plea would be a signal that Wildstein, a former Christie ally who ordered the lane closures, has agreed to cooperate with federal investigators. Prosecutors are also expected to announce other indictments that grew out of their investigation later in the day. The charges against Wildstein and the identities of others who face charges were unclear early Friday morning.

Wildstein cooperating, other indictments are to be announced...it's Christmas in May.

Should be interesting to hear what the feds have to say today.

If prosecutors made a deal with Wildstein, he's got to have something on higher-ups.

Since his lawyer has said in the past that Wildstein has evidence that Chris Christie knew of the bridge lane closings as they were happening (contradicting Christie's claim that he only learned about them later), that may mean the feds are looking to work their way up the chain to Christie.

Can a guy from Jersey run for president while under indictment?

We may soon find out the answer to that question.

Bridgegate Indictments Expected Soon - Maybe Next Week

NY Times tonight:

It has been falsely predicted many times in the last year, but now it seems to be true: The federal investigation into the lane closings at the George Washington Bridge appears to be coming to a head, with an announcement of indictments as early as next week.

...

 People close to the case say prosecutors are likely to bring charges based on a rarely used provision of a fraud statute, under which they would argue that Mr. Christie’s associates used the bridge, or the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs it, for a purpose other than its intended one. In the case of the bridge, the closings were apparently meant to punish Mayor Mark Sokolich of Fort Lee, a Democrat, after he declined to endorse the governor’s re-election bid in 2013.

What is less certain is whether prosecutors will find crimes in the other ways Mr. Christie used his powers in the service of political ambition. He used Port Authority money to fill holes in his budget; his lieutenants doled out flags and steel from the remnants of the World Trade Center to woo mayors whose endorsements they sought. An office of “intergovernmental affairs” worked to cultivate endorsements, all in the hopes that the governor could use a huge winning margin to argue that he was the Republican most likely to win the White House in 2016.

Investigators months ago subpoenaed records from officials at the authority and Mr. Christie’s 2013 campaign regarding Jersey City, where Christie administration officials canceled a day’s worth of meetings that had been set up with the city’s new mayor after he told the campaign that he would endorse the governor’s opponent. Those records could be used to establish a pattern of punishing local officials.

Investigators have also questioned potential witnesses about efforts by the Christie administration to cover up the political motives behind the lane closings, explaining them as a traffic study.

Oh, goodie.

Got my popcorn ready and everything.

Shall we take a pool out on who gets indicted?

Bridgegate Investigation Nears Closure - Are Christie's Former Allies In Sights Of Prosecutors?

The WSJ last night:

U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman’s investigation into lane closures at the George Washington Bridge and other alleged abuses at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is expected to wrap up in coming weeks after more than a year.

The investigation has seemed to quicken in recent weeks, with prosecutors returning to witnesses with questions that indicated they were close to finishing this stage of their probe, according to people familiar with the matter.

It remains unclear whether the findings will implicate current or former allies to Gov. Chris Christie and whether prosecutors can answer questions that investigations by the governor’s office and the Democrat-led Legislature haven't. 

What isn't unclear is what prosecutors are looking at.

First, Christie ally David Samson:

In recent weeks, attorneys for potential witnesses have turned over documents and emails to prosecutors that relate to former Port Authority Chairman David Samson, according to a person familiar with the matter. These documents include accounts of communications between Mr. Samson and United Airlines.

Prosecutors are looking into whether Mr. Samson asked the airline for a special weekly flight to Columbia, S.C., near his vacation home while the company was negotiating with the Port Authority. The flight was canceled after Mr. Samson left his position.

Prosecutors have interviewed people and asked questions that indicate they are looking for evidence of quid pro quo, according to a person familiar with the matter.

United declined to comment, referring to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that said the company and senior executives are cooperating with a federal investigation. A spokeswoman for Mr. Samson declined to comment.

Mr. Christie’s advisers have long worried about Mr. Samson’s future and the political implications it could have for the governor.

Mr. Christie stayed in touch with Mr. Samson, a longtime friend and political ally, after the bridge revelations even as he cut contact with others, according to people familiar with the matter.

And former Christie "friend" David Wildstein:

Prosecutors also have focused on any possible attempt to conceal the lane closures or misrepresent why they occurred in September 2013.

Prosecutors have asked about photos depicting the governor and David Wildstein, then a Port Authority official, talking at a ceremony for 9/11 at ground zero in Manhattan, and whether the governor told any of his staff about their interaction, a person familiar with the matter said.

Mr. Wildstein, who was hired by the Christie administration, was involved in the decision to close lanes at the George Washington Bridge allegedly in retribution against the mayor of Fort Lee, N.J.

Prosecutors also have quizzed potential witnesses about how the administration explained the closures publicly even as documents later showed they fretted privately, asking detailed questions about conversations among Mr. Christie’s political orbit in late 2013.

The governor has said he doesn’t remember what he discussed with Mr. Wildstein on Sept. 11, 2013, when the bridge lane closures had entered their third day. He has denied knowledge of the lane closures before they occurred.

Mr. Wildstein’s calendar indicated he met with Christie administration officials in 2013 after the bridge lane closures and frequently talked to allies of Mr. Christie, including Mike DuHaime, the governor’s top political adviser, and Bill Stepien, a senior Christie aide who lost his role after emails concerning Fort Lee were disclosed.

Mr. Wildstein’s lawyer, Alan Zegas, declined to comment. He has written to the Port Authority saying “evidence exists” that would show Mr. Christie knew of the closures while they were occurring.

I'm not a lawyer, don't know much about the law or anything like that, but it seems to me from the WSJ story that prosecutors are targeting Samson and Wildstein, looking to squeeze them and see what information comes out.

And with Wildstein having indicated that "evidence exists" to show Christie knew of the lane closures as they were happening, I would say that Christie is going to have some trouble with this matter when all is said and done.

Hard to know what Samson has said to prosecutors, but Wildstein sounds like he wants to talk, having been thrown under the bus by Christie back in that January 2014 news conference.

Not mentioned here is Bridget Anne Kelly, the writer of the infamous "Time for some traffic problems" email - she's been thrown under the bus by Christie too, so I wouldn't be surprised if she isn't looking to take Christie out too.

Finally, all this stuff is a problem because prosecutors are able to sift through an email trail.

No wonder New York's Criminal-In-Chief Andrew Cuomo is burning the midnight oil having all emails over 90 days burnt from the servers.

Is Chris Christie Toast?

It has been fairly quiet on the Chris Christie scandal front since Christie crony David Samson resigned from the Port Authority a while back and Christie is going around the country raising money for the Republican Party like nothing's the matter, that all is on schedule for his 2016 run for president.

Jeff Smith at Politico says pay no attention to what's going on at the surface of the scandal story because down below things are not going so well for Christie:

Federal prosecutors have convened a grand jury to look into the Bridgegate allegations, but that investigation opens Christie up to all kinds of ancillary investigations - in short, everything he has done as governor will come under scrutiny.

That scrutiny is bound to turn something up, particularly relating to Christie's relationship to former Port Authority chairman David Samson, who has conflict of interest problems all over the place, most famously in the Hoboken Sandy aid extortion story that has Hoboken mayor Dawn Zimmer telling prosecutors Christie's lieutenant governor threatened to withhold aid from Hoboken unless she greenlighted a real estate development deal with connections to a firm Samson runs.

Zimmer and the others telling their stories to federal prosecutors are not talking smack for the hell of it - they open themselves up to criminal charges for that sort of thing, so whatever stories they're telling, they're mostl likely on the up-and-up. Even more troubling for Christie, Zimmer's story can perhaps be corroborated by three or four other people she told about it at the time, including the Hoboken city lawyer who just had his attorney-client privilege waived so he can talk to prosecutors.

Christie crony David Wildstein just got immunity to talk to prosecutors about what he knows, including the allegation that surfaced that Wildstein told Christie of the bridge closures on September 11, 2013, well before Christie claims to have known about the incident.

Smith says Wildstein probably doesn't have any evidence fatal to Christie - otherwise he wouldn't have had his lawyer publicly fishing around for immunity for Wildstein - but he's got enough to do damage, as does the other Christie crony, Bridget Anne Kelly, who got trashed in Chris Christie's internal Bridgegate scandal investigation and report released a little while back:

There is a little known federal statute called “misprision of a felony” (18 U.S.C. § 4), which could be used against Christie if Wildstein can prove that he told Christie of the bridge closing contemporaneously. The statute, used against people who fail to report knowledge of a felony to the appropriate authorities, is generally only applied against those in a special position of authority. Kelly’s recent response to the Mastro report, in which her attorney wrote that she could arbitrate a he-said/she-said dispute regarding Christie’s contemporaneous knowledge of the bridge closing, strongly implied that Kelly’s involvement in the affair came at the behest of superiors as she sought to “pursue the goals of the Office.” With the Mastro report and the governor himself having now thoroughly trashed Wildstein and Kelly in a pre-emptive attempt to erode their credibility, they have precious little to lose by telling all.

But the biggest problem Christie may face is what Samson does:

The available evidence suggests that Samson is in real danger of an indictment, and Christie and his lawyers’ desperate effort to shield him from any blowback indicate that they are acutely interested in keeping him quiet. Christie implied in announcing Samson’s resignation that the 74 year-old may simply have wanted to relax, but assuming that prison is not the ideal retirement community, Christie must be concerned about Samson’s exposure—and potentially his own. And based on my knowledge of federal investigations, if Samson is indicted, the only way he’ll likely be able to avoid prison is by revealing knowledge of wrongdoing by Christie – knowledge that, as the governor’s longtime mentor and close ally, he may be uniquely situated to possess. As Christie knows better than anyone, the feds don’t hand out immunity like pediatricians hand out lollipops. And neither judges nor parole boards appear to resist elderly incarceration; indeed, seniors are the fastest growing generational cohort in federal prisons. So if Samson is indicted and wants to die a free man, he probably has to give up something meaningful – i.e., Christie.

Chris Christie can make believe on the surface like nothing's wrong all he wants - underneath it all, he's got serious exposure to a whole host of potential indictments.

Wildstein's talking, Kelly's got reason to talk now after Christie's internal report did a hammer job on her, Samson's got reason to talk if he doesn't want to die in prison - and they all may have some interesting things to say about Governor Chris Christie.

And that's leaving Sheriff Andy Cuomo himself out of this, who Christie allegedly called over the Bridgegate mess himself to try and get Cuomo's PA representative to stop causing trouble for Christie.

Hard to know what Cuomo knows - and what he did with that knowledge - but that's certainly a potential problem for Christie as well.

It appears that Christie and Cuomo conspired together to raise Port Authority bridge and tunnel tolls and PATH fares in order to steal the money for their own projects in their respective states, so Cuomo probably has good reason to protect Christie in order to protect himself.

We'll have to see how this all plays out - I'm not ready to say Christie's toast yet, but I would say this is a helluva lot of fun to watch play out.

I bet Mary Pat isn't laughing so much these days.

Former Christie Aide Bridget Anne Kelly Says She'll Talk To Feds

No wonder Christie was so bombastic at yesterday's press conference - he sees the end is near:

Gov. Chris Christe's inner circle continued to implode on Friday with a close ally abruptly resigning and his former deputy chief of staff now willing to talk if she gets immunity.

David Samson, a top Bridgegate figure and the target of a federal probe, quietly surrendered his post as Port Authority chairman. Christie insisted the resignation - effective immediately and tendered under a cloud of suspicion - had nothing to do with the September lane closures on the George Washington Bridge.

Samson’s departure came a day after the results of a widely panned $1 million taxpayer-funded report cleared the governor of any wrongdoing in the Bridgegate scandal. The report did, however, recommend reforms at the bi-state agency that runs the George Washington Bridge.

The Samson resignation may not be Christie’s biggest problem.

Bridget Anne Kelly, who was fired in January, is willing to testify after initially invoking the Fifth Amendment when subpoenaed by a state legislative panel conducting a probe of the Christie administration. But it appears she’ll talk to the feds.

Kelly — whose August 2013 email set the Fort Lee, N.J., gridlock in motion — would fully cooperate if “provided with the appropriate procedural safeguards,” said her lawyer, Michael Critchley.

The defense lawyer made it clear where his client would like to get immunity: “The only credible investigation into the lane closings is being conducted by the U.S. attorney’s office.”

Now there are two former Christie aides willing to talk to the feds in return for immunity - David Wildstein and Bridget Anne Kelly.

And now we have another Christie crony losing his job amid the scandal - Samson, who is connected to the Sandy aid scandal in Hoboken, named in the Bridgegate emails between Wildstein and Kelly, and under investigation from the feds for corruption at the Port Authority.

Want to bet he'll look to talk to save himself if he can?

And no one outside of Chris Christie's wife bought the Christie-connected law firm's report that "exonerated" Christie from Bridgegate.

Christie's got trouble.

A lot of it.

Isn't It Time For Bridget Anne Kelly To Throw Christie Under The Bus?

From the NY Times:

Gov. Chris Christie, seeking to stanch the damage the scandal had caused to his political fortunes, fired her as his deputy chief of staff after that, calling her “stupid.” But the report commissioned by Mr. Christie and released Thursday doubles down on a strategy of portraying Ms. Kelly as duplicitous, weeping frequently and dependent on men for approval and stability.

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Ms. Kelly’s lawyer did not respond to requests for comment Thursday. But the report’s depiction of Ms. Kelly outraged her friends, as well as Mr. Christie’s critics.

“This report was meant to whitewash Governor Christie’s reputation as a bully, but it actually confirms that he does embrace a culture of intimidation and retaliation,” said Lis Smith, a Democratic consultant who worked for the man Mr. Christie defeated in 2009, Gov. Jon S. Corzine. “He’s throwing every sexist slur at Kelly while needlessly and aggressively injecting details about her personal life. It’s a cynical attempt to distract from the real story.”

If I was Bridget Anne Kelly, I'd be looking for the opportunity to make Governor Christie pay for this smear job he had the lawyers who put together this "whitewash" do on her.

The Times points out the report didn't do the same smear job on Kelly's alleged co-conspirator in Bridgegate, David Wildstein, that it did on her.

Just another example of Christie's misogyny.

We've seen this stuff before - like when he screams at teachers while his wife grins in the background.