Judge finds probable cause in GWB complaint vs. Christie


Salvador Rizzo reports in The Record:


Governor Christie may have broken New Jersey law during the George Washington Bridge lane closures, a municipal court judge ruled Thursday.

Judge Roy F. McGeady of Bergen County found probable cause that Christie engaged in official misconduct during the 2013 lane closures and issued a summons for the governor to appear Oct. 24.  


An in-depth look at the scandal over the lane closures at the George Washington Bridge and related aftershocks. Click here to launch.

Probable cause is a relatively low bar in the legal system that allows law enforcement agencies to search, charge or arrest individuals suspected of wrongdoing, but it is not enough to prove guilt.

Christie said through a spokesman that he is appealing the ruling immediately and that the citizen who filed the court complaint against him is “a political activist with a history of abusing the judicial system.”
It is now up to the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office to decide whether to pursue an indictment against Christie. A spokeswoman for acting Bergen County Prosecutor Gurbir S. Grewal, a Christie appointee, declined to comment Thursday.

For years, Christie has denied any knowledge of the plot to close Fort Lee access lanes to the world’s busiest bridge. But lawyers for the prosecution and the defense in the ongoing Bridgegate trial have cast doubt on Christie’s assertions.

A former political operative for Christie who plotted the scheme, David Wildstein, testified in federal court that he discussed the lane closures with the governor during a Sept. 11 memorial ceremony at Ground Zero, while a massive traffic jam was paralyzing Fort Lee. Christie has said he does not recall Wildstein’s comments.

Wildstein is the main witness for the prosecution and says he is cooperating with U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman’s investigation in part because he hopes to avoid prison.

A former firefighter from Teaneck, Bill Brennan, filed a complaint against Christie in municipal court based on Wildstein’s testimony.
Brennan argues that Christie engaged in official misconduct because he should have reversed the lane closures once he became aware of them. Under state law, official misconduct is punishable by five to 10 years in prison.

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Kelly’s lawyer: She and Christie discussed plot beforehand

Bridget Anne Kelly and legal team leave federal court on Tuesday. Katherine Taylor for The New York Times

Kate Zernike of The New York Times
reports today:
Bridget Anne Kelly discussed the
George Washington Bridge lane closings with her boss, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, before they happened in
September 2013, her lawyer asserted in federal court here on Tuesday. She also
discussed them with him the week they were happening.
The lawyer, Michael Critchley, did
not elaborate on his cryptic claims, which he made while questioning a
prosecution witness.
Testimony in the trial has shown
that in the months after the lane closings, several of Mr. Christie’s top
advisers had told him that Ms. Kelly, his former deputy chief of staff, had
emails about the closings. Those people included his chief of staff, chief
counsel, press secretary, chief political adviser and an aide he had tapped to
lead the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey,
which runs the bridge.
Yet Mr. Christie, a Republican,
convened a staff meeting in December 2013 and angrily demanded to know if
anyone had knowledge or emails about the closings. An hour later, he held a
news conference where he said he was certain that none of his staff members had
any knowledge of or had been involved in the scheme.
When emails with Ms. Kelly’s name
appeared as a result of a legislative subpoena a month later, Mr. Christie held
another news conference and declared that she had lied to him.
It was, Mr.
Critchley said in court on Tuesday, a “sham.”
According to testimony in federal
court here, where Ms. Kelly and another former Christie aide, Bill Baroni, are
on trial for authorizing the lane closings and then covering them up, the
governor’s office was not much concerned about finding the truth about the
shutdown in the months after they took place.
Instead, the governor and his aides,
keenly aware of Mr. Christie’s presidential ambitions and how a scandal could
damage them, were more worried about keeping any evidence implicating his
office hidden.
Cross-examining
a former top Christie aide, Mr. Critchley offered tantalizing clues as to what
Ms. Kelly may say on the stand about what Mr. Christie knew about the closings,
which prosecutors say were meant to punish the mayor of  Fort Lee, N.J.,
for refusing to endorse the governor’s re-election. 
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Labor unions backing a NJ Republican in Congress? Yes.

Chris Opfer of Bloomberg’s Bureau of National Affairs reports:
Labor unions are spending some of their campaign cash on an unlikely ally as the election season heads into the final stretch: a New Jersey Republican running against a former Obama administration adviser.
Frank LoBiondo
Labor groups have chipped in about $316,000 toward Rep. Frank LoBiondo’s re-election campaign, more than unions have contributed to all but one other congressional candidate of either party this cycle. That’s also six times more than Democratic challenger Dave Cole has received in contributions from all sources in his uphill battle for LoBiondo’s seat.
The figures, compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics and based on disclosures through the second quarter of this year, don’t include outside spending by unions or dark money funneled through Super PACs. The contributions to the 11-term Republican come from some of the same labor organizations that are pushing to secure Democratic control of the Senate and to send Hillary Clinton to the White House.
“We’ve supported Frank LoBiondo for 20 years, and he’s supported us,” UNITE HERE Local 54 President Bob McDevitt told Bloomberg BNA. The union represents casino workers in Atlantic City, part of LoBiondo’s district. “We don’t discard political allies just because there’s someone else running from the Democratic party,” McDevitt added.
Labor groups told Bloomberg BNA that they’re backing LoBiondo based on their history with the candidate, not necessarily because he’s more aligned with them on the issues than Cole. They also noted that the South Jersey lawmaker has used his role as chair of a transportation subcommittee to fight against foreign airlines accused of trying to undercut U.S. air carriers by skirting labor laws. 

Read the full story here

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Top Port Authority cops say Baroni wanted them to lie

Paul Nunziato, left, and Mike DeFilippis, right, leave federal court on Tuesday

Paul Berger reports for The Record:

Two top cops at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey described to a federal jury on Tuesday how one of Governor Christie’s allies embroiled them in a plot to cover up the politically-motivated closure of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge.


Paul Nunziato and Mike DeFilippis, the president and second vice-president of the Port Authority Police Benevolent Association, said that Christie’s ally, Bill Baroni, told them to falsely take partial responsibility for the lane closures.

They said that when they refused, Baroni lied on their behalf anyway, telling New Jersey lawmakers that Nunziato and DeFilippis had requested lane changes at the bridge because of concerns over the safety of traffic officers.

Deborah Gramiccioni outside federal court 

Earlier in the day, jurors heard testimony from a former Christie aide, Deborah Gramiccioni, who described how the governor’s deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, became increasingly distraught as the true motivation for the lane closures began to spill out into the public during the winter of 2013 and as Governor Christie became increasingly angry.


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In New Jersey, how much affordable housing is enough?

         Karen Yi reports for the Asbury Park Press:


The past does matter,  according to one state judge.
Advocates for housing priced for people in the middle or at the lower end of the income scale are celebrating a ruling by Superior Court Judge Douglas K. Wolfson, sitting in Middlesex County, who said towns must account for a backlog of housing needs that accumulated when state oversight of such efforts failed.
The ruling comes weeks before New Jersey’s Supreme Court is expected to settle the question of whether municipalities should accommodate affordable-housing needs built up during a 16-year “gap period” when the state agency tasked with ensuring compliance disintegrated.
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NJ gas-tax showdown postponed until Friday

Final votes in the New Jersey Assembly and Senate on the 23-cent gasoline tax
hike to fill the tank of the Transportation Trust Fund had to be pushed off until
Friday due a procedural issue.


Opponents hope the delay will give residents time to light up lawmakers’ phones
and emails with demands that they vote NO on the legislative package.


Potential Democratic candidates for governor, Ray Lesniak and John Wizniewski,
are out front in opposing the fuel hike and the accompanying elimination of the
inheritance tax. Senate President Steve Sweeney, one of two leading candidates
 for governor on the D side, is for the package.


Brenda Flanagan has the details above for NJTV NEWS


Other news coverage
NJ gas tax vote delayed until Friday
Legislators phones ringing off the hook 


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