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5 Things You Should Know About The Bombshell That's Not A Bombshell

1. New York Times Bombshell Not A Bombshell. A media firestorm was set off by sloppy reporting from the New York Times and their suggestion that there was actually "evidence" when it was a letter alleging that "evidence exists." Forced to change the lead almost immediately, the Times was roundly criticized, and its editor was forced to issue this extraordinary statement to the Huffington Post

• "We've made probably dozens of changes to the story to make it more precise. That was one of them. I bet there will be dozens more."

2. As he has said repeatedly, Governor Christie had no involvement, knowledge or understanding of the real motives behind David Wildstein's scheme to close lanes on the George Washington Bridge.

• GOVERNOR CHRISTIE: “So what I can tell you is if people find that hard to believe, I don't know what else to say except to tell them that I had no knowledge of this -- of the planning, the execution or anything about it -- and that I first found out about it after it was over. And even then, what I was told was that it was a traffic study. And there was no evidence to the contrary until yesterday that was brought to my attention or anybody else's attention.” (Press Conference, 1/9/14)

3. The Governor first learned lanes at the George Washington Bridge were even closed from press accounts after the fact. Even then he was under the belief it was a traffic study. He first learned David Wildstein and Bridget Kelly closed lanes for political purposes when it was reported on January 8th.

• GOVERNOR CHRISTIE: “And I knew nothing about this. And until it started to be reported in the papers about the closure, but even then I was told this was a traffic study.”
(Press Conference, 1/9/14)

4. In David Wildstein's past, people and newspaper accounts have described him as "tumultuous" and someone who "made moves that were not productive."

• As a 16-year-old kid, he sued over a local school board election.

• He was publicly accused by his high school social studies teacher of deceptive behavior.

• He had a controversial tenure as Mayor of Livingston

• He was an anonymous blogger known as Wally Edge

• He had a strange habit of registering web addresses for other people's names without telling them

• Thomas L. Adams, Wildstein’s Council Running Mate: “It Was A Tumultuous Time.” (Shawn Boburg, “Ex-Blogger Is Governor Christie's Eyes, Ears Inside The Port Authority,” Bergen Record, 3/3/12)

• Robert Leopold, Livingston’s former Democratic Mayor: Wildstein Was “A Political Animal” Who “Frightened People.” (Shawn Boburg, “Ex-Blogger Is Governor Christie's Eyes, Ears Inside The Port Authority,” Bergen Record, 3/3/12)

• “He Was A Very Contentious Person.” (Shawn Boburg, “Ex-Blogger Is Governor Christie's Eyes, Ears Inside The Port Authority,” Bergen Record , 3/3/12)

• Wildstein Created “Culture Of Fear” Within Port Authority. “He and others referred to a ‘culture of fear’ within the authority, reflected in testimony from other authority officials about their reluctance to report to Mr. Foye or others what they considered an ‘odd’ request from Mr. Wildstein—to abruptly realign lanes that had been in place for decades and to tell no one about it.” (Ted Mann, “Port Authority Chief Testifies in George Washington Bridge Flap,” The Wall Street Journal, 12/9/13)

5. David Wildstein has been publicly asking for immunity since the beginning, been held in contempt by the New Jersey legislature for refusing to testify, failed to provide this so-called "evidence" when he was first subpoenaed by the NJ Legislature and is looking for the Port Authority to pay his legal bills.

• Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich: "Look, from my perspective and Fort Lee's perspective, we have credibility issues with Mr. Wildstein…He is certainly bucking for immunity." (Susan K. Livio, “GWB letter raises credibility questions for Chris Christie, Port Authority official, politicians say,” Star-Ledger , 2/1/14)

• Assemblyman John Wisniewski: "‘I am curious (Wildstein) has documents … he did not provide them to the committee when he was subpoenaed,’ Wisniewski added.” (Susan K. Livio, “GWB letter raises credibility questions for Chris Christie, Port Authority official, politicians say,” Star-Ledger , 2/1/14)

Bottom line - David Wildstein will do and say anything to save David Wildstein. http://images.politico.com/global/2014/02/01/christie1.html

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Over Chinese food at the fabulous Lao Sze Chuan in Milford, Ct. I had the pleasure of reading Chris Christie’s 700-word-long attack on David Wildstein and the New York Times. This came moments after I opened a fortune cookie that advised me to “Enjoy yourself while you can.” (!)

I am trying to summon the requisite mood to seriously ponder the implications of the email that Governor Christie apparently sent to supporters/donors/ Politico/Beltway Republicans (as if there’s any… never mind). But I can’t. I just can’t.

It is hard for me to believe that the governor of an American state could author such a piece of risible juvenilia, except it is even harder for me to believe a paid communications professional could have been behind this. The “argument” Christie (or possibly one very very close longtime advisor) is making here is that David Wildstein is a bad guy.

Why?

Because as a “a 16-year-old kid” he filed a lawsuit over a school board election and was “publicly accused by his high school social studies teacher of deceptive behavior.” Because he was, according to Christie, a “tumultuous” person (not the correct usage of that word, Governor, but whatever). Because he was “a political animal” who had “a controversial tenure” as the mayor of Livingston. Because he “made moves that were not productive.”

In some ways, I like David Wildstein more after reading some of this. I wish I’d thought of suing over a school board election when I was 16. I’m sure I engaged in deceptive behavior in high school. And earlier this week I, too, “made moves that were not productive.” Moreover, I will make more unproductive moves next week and I might even be making an unproductive move at this very moment.

Obviously it is hard for me to take some of these criticisms seriously. They are so flailing and weak that I can’t believe a journalist could claim Christie is “mount[ing] an aggressive defense.” And they don’t even seem to be true based on the article that Christie cites in his own email! Still, that’s why you leak this to Politico rather than a home-state media outlet in the first place.

But let’s forget about the press statement for a minute. After all, it’s intended to be a distraction and a sideshow.

Here’s how I look at this story right now:

It is utterly irrelevant if Chris Christie ‘wins the day’ or the weekend or the next 5 minutes or the next week. Irrelevant.

The bottom line is that he is in serious trouble, politically and legally.

On the legal front, the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey is probing allegations by the mayor of Hoboken that a member of Christie’s cabinet and the lieutenant governor linked federal Hurricane Sandy relief funds to the the mayor’s support for a redevelopment project in Hoboken that would exclusively benefit one of Christie’s closest allies – whom he appointed to chair the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. This morning on his MSNBC show Steve Kornacki discussed reporting he and I (and producer Jack Bohrer) did showing that those federal Hurricane Sandy funds have not been monitored by the Christie Administration as required by a law that Christie himself signed last March. Furthermore, relief funds have been extremely hard to account for because Christie vetoed a bill that would have created a single website to track Sandy funding and contract information. Based on the reactions of two congressmen who watched the report with me, officials in Washington will be loath to trust Christie with the next round of federal funds and we should not be surprised if an investigation is on the horizon.

On the home-state political front, Christie is facing a Monday Feb. 3 deadline when subpoenas issued to members of his senior staff and campaign are due to be answered in Trenton as a part of the New Jersey legislature’s investigation into lane closures on the George Washington Bridge last September.

Those lane closures were how this entire story began for me. Three weeks ago I found evidence that a billion dollar redevelopment project in Fort Lee might have been targeted by those lane closures. The reason I had looked for that evidence was because, after watching Chris Christie’s marathon press conference, I thought his story didn’t add up. There were many many words spoken over a very long time, but when aggregated into sentences and paragraphs, none of it made sense logically. And the idea that David Wildstein and Bill Baroni coordinated with Christie’s staff and campaign manager to re-allocate lanes on the George Washington Bridge to punish a mayor for not endorsing the governor seemed like disproportionate punishment. There had to be something else going on.

We don’t yet know why those lanes were closed, but on Friday we were reminded that there are people out there who do. One of them may be David Wildstein. And through his lawyer, Wildstein telegraphed that “evidence exists” showing that Christie’s statements on Jan. 9 were false.

The letter was news. Perhaps the New York Times’ headline was too bold. But so what! David Wildstein has already produced evidence showing that the order to close the lanes came from the governor’s office, and that even junior staff in that office were aware that an operation was being run in Fort Lee. We know that Wildstein, Baroni, and Samson were with Christie that week. We know that Bill Stepien, the governor’s re-election campaign manager and onetime deputy chief-of-staff, was aware of the operation and may know the true motive (“win some, lose some,” he said afterward in an email).

In his office’s statement from last night and his subsequent email tonight, Governor Christie alleges that the lane closures were David Wildstein’s idea – tonight he called them “David Wildstein’s scheme.”

That may be true. Perhaps David Wildstein is the guy who came up with the idea of closing lanes one day and then filed it away as an off-the-shelf plan to execute if and when necessary to accomplish a political end.

Yet there’s a reason David Wildstein is seeking legal immunity and reimbursement for his legal bills: the order to close those lanes – the motive – seems to have come from Trenton.

And here we get to the heart of the matter. David Wildstein was put in the Port Authority by Chris Christie, in a job Christie invented, to be the governor’s eyes and ears – his enforcer. Wildstein was put at the Port so Christie could more effectively use the Port as an extension of his political operation (as Steve and I are documenting, more and more, with each passing week).

So spare us the shock that Wildstein is “a political animal.” Christie knew who Wildstein was before he appointed him to this job. There is no sense in distancing yourself from one of your own appointees who was given a job specifically because his skills matched what you were looking to accomplish with that appointment.

And finally, let me point something out: Christie goes out of his way to knock David Wildstein for being “an anonymous blogger known as Wally Edge.”

I worked for Wally Edge. I discussed it yesterday morning on MSNBC.

I enjoyed working for him. He was a fiercely loyal editor and advocate, and a very skilled observer of all things political. It is true I did not know at the time that Wally Edge was David Wildstein, but I took the job as a professional journalist, with a sense of the ethical obligations I had to sources and readers. It was better for me not to know Wally’s true identity so I would not have to lie to sources when they asked if I knew. And at some point the question just wasn’t very interesting anymore. He knew things. He had good sources. He was at least as fair as most other editors I’d worked with. He pushed back against people who gave me a hard time. He put me in a job where I was a daily reporter in one of the most politically cutthroat states in the federal union, and he helped me make it my own while I was there. And he never lied to me. So, yes, I liked Wally Edge. And it’s disappointing to me that we are where we are today.

But you know who else liked Wally Edge back then?

Chris Christie. The same man who earlier today denounced Wildstein for being an “anonymous blogger.”

I don’t have my email records from 2002, but if I did I am sure I could produce emails to and from the U.S. Attorney’s office. Almost everyone leaks in political reporting, but some of my biggest scoops came from leaks from Christie’s office, either to Wally or to both of us.

And Chris Christie loved the product of our work. When I covered the Newark mayoral race in 2002 I spent part of the day looking at polling sites where Cory Booker supporters were being intimidated or harassed. From the back of an SUV I would type up a story with photos, file it over a dial-up connection, and wait 15 minutes until federal election monitors were dispatched to the site by Christie’s office, where Christie was readingPoliticsNJ.com himself and reloading the page every few minutes.

When Chris Christie gave a press conference that afternoon in the U.S. Attorney’s office in the federal building in Newark, he was holding a rolled up piece of paper in his hand as he stood at the lectern and took questions. The piece of paper was one of my stories. When I went to speak with him afterwards, he unfurled it and told me how much he loved the work I was doing.

I don’t know if Chris Christie knew the true identity of Wally Edge back then. But he certainly did by the time he appointed David Wildstein to the Port Authority. And by then he had to know that the coverage David (and I, and Steve, and our fellow alums) had given to his prosecutions had played at least a small part in helping him become governor.

There is a legal process going on that may result in indictments and a political process in motion that may well lead to an impeachment. The risk premium on a Christie candidacy for president just went through the roof. This has been a very very bad week for the governor.

It may be true that David Wildstein “will do and say anything to save David Wildstein.” But at this point the same can be said of Chris Christie.

It was probably a good idea for the governor to hire that white-collar criminal defense lawyer from Manhattan.

After all, we don’t know what was in the file boxes David Wildstein carried out of the Port Authority last year. He mentioned them in passing on Sept. 18, 2013 in an email to Bill Stepien.

Why do we know that?

Because it’s in the documents Wildstein provided to the legislature. Exhibit A. Page 642. An email sent at 5:30 a.m.



It seems safe to assume there’s more where that came from. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/well-that-escalated-quickly

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What Were They/He Thinking

If you haven't had a chance to look at Brian Murphy's take on Christie's desperate email fireball thrown at David Wildstein yesterday, definitely give it a look. In addition to having a really strong grasp of New Jersey politics, Murphy used to work for Wildstein. So it gives him a unique perspective.

But there's another aspect of this. The more I think about this letter, I don't think it's from Christie and Co. I think the author is Chris Christie. He may not have typed it out himself. But down to pretty specific details included I think this came from him.

This part isn't conclusive certainly. But who's this hung up or aware of or focused on stuff Wildstein did in High School? There's a level of anger and personal emotional involvement in this memo that points to the guy at the top.

Perhaps one staffer dashed it off. But I think Christie had to be involved saying, yeah, great idea. Let's do it.

More ominously for Christie's future, the fact that this comical letter got out suggests there's no one in or left in Christie's inner circle able to stand up to him and say, "No. That's a really bad idea. We can't do that."

Here's a note from a seasoned Republican political hand I got this morning ...

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Just read your comments about the CC screed-email on Wildstein. Two quick thoughts: first quite obviously nobody had the juice with CC to tell him some of its contents were silly and/or juvenile like the high school stuff. It looks like he wrote it himself when he was furious and it was sent out without any review or consideration by his Inner Circle advisers who might have steered him away from such an embarrassing product. More broadly it's never a good sign when the Principal wants to do something stupid or harmful and there's no one in the Inner Circle with the judgment and standing with the P to steer them away or just say no.

It's not just Comms people. It's the whole dynamic of his most senior, most trusted staff (minus Stepien who was kicked out). Every Big Time Principal needs somebody with the trust and standing to say NO or that's a bad idea. Obviously CC has nobody who serves that role for him and today he pays the price for it.

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To have the slightest hope of building and sustaining a presidential campaign, Christie needs to convince a big cadre of people that he's viable and that something crazy or reckless or (politically dangerous) isn't going to happen.

These kinds of antics make that so much harder. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/what-were-they-he-thinking

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In all the vast history of the sprawling bureaucracy known as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey there has never been a job like it.

It came with no actual job description.

In the end, it had only one occupant, and he didn’t even have to submit a résumé.

Nobody seemed to have the vaguest idea what he was really doing.

But he was paid $15O,020.

The job of director of interstate capital projects, a special niche created for David Wildstein, the central figure in the George Washington Bridge scandal, has officially been abolished, the agency confirmed yesterday.

It was August 2010, when the mysterious stranger walked into the agency’s Park Avenue headquarters in Manhattan.

No one really seemed to know what that business was supposed to be doing. But whatever he was doing, he made it clear he did so at the behest of the governor.

Wildstein was hired by former Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni, with the blessing of Gov. Chris Christie. Emails and other revelations now seem to indicate his job title may have been just a cover for serving the political interest of the governor.

"On many occasions I heard both he and Baroni say they have only one constituent: Chris Christie," said a former official, one of two who asked for anonymity because they did not want to jeopardize colleagues still at the agency.

The new director eventually became the subject of unwanted attention when he was identified by his boss, Baroni, as the agency official who ordered the now-infamous lane closures at the George Washington Bridge.

Wildstein resigned Dec. 6. Baroni, who had been appointed by Christie, ended up resigning a week after Wildstein. Officials at the Port Authority say the title director of interstate capital projects may be gone from the organizational chart but it’s sort of legend now. And it won’t be soon forgotten. More at http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2014/02/port_authority_eliminates_dir
ector_job_created_for_wildstein.html

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Various sources there say he quickly dis-ingratiated himself by peering in, uninvited, on his new colleagues at their offices and, some say, minding everyone’s business but his own….. "His thing was that he comes and stands at your door, and you finally invite him in, and he stands there and looks at you," said a former agency staffer, describing Wildstein.

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David Wildstein was put in the Port Authority by Chris Christie, in a job Christie invented, to be the governor’s eyes and ears – his enforcer. Wildstein was put at the Port so Christie could more effectively use the Port as an extension of his political operation.

So spare us the shock that Wildstein is “a political animal.” Christie knew who Wildstein was before he appointed him to this job. There is no sense in distancing yourself from one of your own appointees who was given a job specifically because his skills matched what you were looking to accomplish with that appointment.

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