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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Embattled Christie is in a Jam

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New Jersey Assembly Deputy Speaker John Wisniewski, who has launched a panel to investigate the GWB debacle
New Jersey Assembly Deputy Speaker John Wisniewski, who has launched a panel to investigate the GWB debacle
Chris Christie is in trouble and the noose around his neck, and political career, is tightening.

The release of thousands of pages of emails between Christie administration officials last week has directly linked his staff to the George Washington Bridge lane closures in September. This essentially puts Christie behind the wheel of this politically vengeful vehicle.

Christie’s immediate response was to hold a 107-minute press conference that was brimming with denials. And this is exactly what will seal his fate and take down the larger-than-life, adult-sized New Jersey governor.

His denials have locked him into a position where he either lied (about not knowing these duplicitous, punitive, retaliatory tactics had occurred) or he is publicly stating that he does not know what occurs in his own house.

Both positions are damning ones. For a man who is aiming to be the GOP presidential contender for 2016, why take the position that you cannot govern even your own subordinates? If he cannot manage his own staff at the present time, why on earth would this make him a credible presidential candidate?

Furthermore, to claim that his staff and appointees disrupted traffic on the world’s busiest bridge as political punishment without his knowledge is hard to swallow. In fact, the public at large and the special investigative committee that has been commissioned to look into this debacle are not swallowing it at all – in fact, they are choking on it.

Politics can be a dirty sport. When mud flies, sometimes it sticks. This Christie mess is not going away anytime soon. It will stick for many reasons.

To begin, a preexisting narrative whereupon Christie is portrayed as a bully already exists. Keep in mind this is the man who was at the center of a controversial New York Times article just a few weeks ago that focused on his mafia-esque manner of governing.

The Times article documented a pattern of bullying: he stripped former Governor Richard Codey of his security detail after Codey called Christie “combative and difficult” (irony alert!); he cut funding to a Rutgers University program run by a professor who sided with Democrats on a redistricting panel.

As CNN’s political correspondent Paul Begala pointed out “If, as it appears, Christie’s appointees and staff forced New Jerseyans to suffer through a four-hour traffic jam because their mayor — a Democrat — had the temerity to back the Democratic candidate opposing Christie’s re-election, it doesn’t just feed the image of a bully; it cements it.”

Another reason Christie’s ship is sinking is because numerous nuanced political processes have already been set in motion. There is already a class-action lawsuit, which six individuals have signed onto so far. There are already committees in place and a hearing has already begun to investigate the extent of Christie’s knowledge.

On this note, it does not serve Christie in the least when his appointee, former Port Authority official David Wildstein, pleaded the Fifth Amendment at a New Jersey panel hearing investigating the GWB scandal last week. To the contrary, it appears as if Wildstein is protecting both himself and Christie.

More subpoenas are expected to be issued. And as more people are sworn in to testify under oath, more disclosures will be made. The New Jersey Democratic majority leader of the State Senate, Loretta Weinberg, succinctly stated, “I am waiting – and hopefully with the support of Assemblyman (and Deputy Speaker John) Wisniewski – that the subpoena power will continue.”

Continuing subpoenas mean continuing revelations.

“Sooner rather than later,” Weinberg said, “we’re going to hear the whole story of who knew what when.”

In addition to the “Bridgegate” scandal Christie is now under investigation for possible misappropriation of Hurricane Sandy relief funds. The funds were apparently used to pay for a “Stronger Than the Storm” ad campaign that was authorized by the state to let the world at large know that the Jersey Shore was “open for business” following Sandy.

Christie was widely praised (with the exception of some in his party) for his bipartisan embrace of President Obama in the days before Obama’s reelection. There are numerous publicity shots of the two politicians’ embraces on the storm-ravaged remains of the decimated Jersey Shore.

Superstorm Sandy is what catapulted Christie into the limelight. It positioned him as the last beacon of hope for a flagging Republican base that was searching for its next all-star. If the very thing that raised him up was then violated in an abuse of power, ie., the Sandy relief funds, the GOP is out of luck for the next election cycle as it seems their starwill fall.

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