Federal Judge: Christie’s Bridgegate Lawyers Hid Investigation Content

The federal judge presiding over the trial of Governor Chris Christie’s former Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Ann Kelly and former Port Authority Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni in the George Washington Bridge lane closures ruled yesterday that Christie’s taxpayer funded lawyers used a clever, calculated tactic that had “the same effect” as deleting and shredding documents at the center of the so called independent investigation into the matter which purportedly exonerated Christie.

“The taxpayers of the State of New Jersey paid GDC (Gibson Dunn & Crutcher) to conduct a transparent and thorough investigation. What they got instead was opacity and gamesmanship. They deserve better,” wrote Judge Susan D. Wigenton.

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Christie’s Bridgegate legal tab climbs to $8 million

Bridget Ann Kelly, texting, with Governor Chris Christie and Michelle Brown at Seaside Park fire, September 12, 2013. Photo by Phil Stilton

TRENTON — Taxpayers have picked up an $8 million tab for the private law firm hired by Gov. Chris Christie in the wake of the Bridgegate scandal, according the latest billing vouchers through August. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher billed the state $53,824 in May, $27,930 in June, $67,706 in July and $52,925 in August, according to… Read the rest of this entry »

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New Jersey won’t pay legal bills for Bridget Anne Kelly in GWB case

Bridget Ann Kelly, texting, with Governor Chris Christie and Michelle Brown at Seaside Park fire, September 12, 2013 photo credit, Phil Stilon, Ocean County Signal

TRENTON, N.J.—New Jersey won’t pay for Bridget Anne Kelly’s legal bills. That decision followed a months-long fight by her attorney who argued she was being treated differently from other state employees who, like her, all believed it was a traffic study that caused the lane closings at the George Washington Bridge in September 2013. The details… Read the rest of this entry »

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Patrick Murray is emphatic that his next poll will be negative for Christie

By Art Gallagher, [email protected]

UPDATE 4:15PM:  Murray says Magyar/NJSpotlight mischaracterised his analysis.  Read the next chapter here.

Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray already knows that his next poll about Bridgegate and the Mastro Report, will have an negative outcome for Governor Chris Christie.

Murray is quoted by Mark Magyar in a NJSpotlight piece posted this morning saying emphatically that his next poll will have negative results.

“The Mastro report raised more questions than it answered about what is going on in the Christie administration,” Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, noted. “Now, the release of the memos has raised even more questions, including questions about the credibility of the Mastro report itself.”

Murray said he could not imagine what Christie and his top advisers were thinking when they settled on their current legal and political strategy. “Every time they put something out, they undercut their credibility,” he said. “Everything they do provides fodder that keeps this investigation alive and keeps this story alive. The report was overly protective of the governor, and now everyone is looking through the memos to see what the report left out. Nothing gets settled, everything looks worse.”

A Quinnipiac Poll released last week showed that 56 percent of New Jerseyans regarded the report as a “whitewash” and only 36 percent believed it to be a “legitimate investigation.” Even more ominously, 65 percent of voters knew of the Hoboken case, and 57 percent of that group believe Zimmer’s allegation that the Christie administration improperly withheld Sandy aid from her city because she refused to support the Rockefeller Group development.

Murray said he expected to see similar results in his next Monmouth Poll. “It will be negative. This is not going to be positive,” Murray stated emphatically, asserting that the controversy over the Mastro report clearly resonated with voters. “The question now with Christie is, ‘Have we hit a floor where a certain percentage of people will defend him no matter what, and everyone else will attack him?’”  (emphasis added)

 

Murray enjoys a well-earned reputation for producing polls that most accurately match the results of elections in New Jersey.  However, his declaration of a poll’s results before he’s asked a question raises serious questions about his credibility as a political scientist and the perceived “independence” of his analysis.

In fairness I should point out that it is possible that Murray already conducted his survey and hasn’t reported the results yet.

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He Said, She Said: Quotable Moments From The Bridgegate Interviews

He Said, She Said: Quotable Moments From The Bridgegate Interviews (via NJSpotlight)

Newly released documents offer additional details about the scandals enveloping the Christie Administration. The documents are summaries of interviews with 70 people that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s lawyers conducted as part of an internal review…

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