TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A
political dirty-tricks investigation of Gov. Chris Christie's inner
circle broke wide open Wednesday with the release of emails and text
messages that suggest one of his top aides engineered traffic jams in a
New Jersey town last September to punish its mayor.
An "outraged
and deeply saddened" Christie responded by saying he was misled by his
aide, and he denied involvement in the apparent act of political
payback.
The messages were
obtained by The Associated Press and other news organizations Wednesday
amid a statehouse investigation into whether the lane closings that led
to the tie-ups were retribution against the mayor of Fort Lee for not
endorsing Christie for re-election last fall.
"Time
for some traffic problems in Fort Lee," Christie deputy chief of staff
Bridget Anne Kelly wrote in August in a message to David Wildstein, a
top Christie appointee on the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
"Got
it," Wildstein replied. A few weeks later, Wildstein closed two of
three lanes connecting Fort Lee to the heavily traveled George
Washington Bridge, which runs between New Jersey and New York City.
The
messages do not directly implicate Christie in the shutdown. But they
appear to contradict his assertions that the closings were not punitive
and that his staff was not involved.
Democrats seized on the material as more evidence that the potential Republican candidate for president in 2016 is a bully.
The messages "indicate what
we've come to expect from Gov. Christie — when people oppose him, he
exacts retribution. When people question him, he belittles and snidely
jokes. And when anyone dares to look into his administration, he bullies
and attacks," Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie
Wasserman-Schultz said.
In a
statement issued late Wednesday, Christie said: "I am outraged and
deeply saddened to learn that not only was I misled by a member of my
staff, but this completely inappropriate and unsanctioned conduct was
made without my knowledge."
"People will be held responsible for their actions," he added, but gave no details.
Kelly had no immediate comment.Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich called it "appalling" that the traffic jams appear to have been deliberately created.
"When it's man-made and when it was done with venom and when it was done intentionally, it is, in my mind, the prime example of political pettiness," he said. He said the gridlock put people in danger by holding up emergency vehicles, and he added that those responsible should resign.
Democratic state Assemblyman John Wisniewski, who has been leading the investigation, said the material in the documents is "shocking" and "outrageous" and calls into question the honesty of the governor and his staff.
The tie-ups occurred between Sept. 9 and Sept. 13. Port Authority officials later said the closings were part of a traffic study. But no study has been produced.
As the controversy heated up over the past few weeks, Wildstein resigned, as did Port Authority deputy executive director Bill Baroni, another Christie appointee. Wildstein, a childhood friend of the governor, is scheduled to testify Thursday before a state Assembly committee but is fighting the subpoena.
One of the released texts came from Sokolich, who pleaded on the morning of Sept. 10: "The bigger problem is getting kids to school. Help please. It's maddening."
Within minutes of Sokolich's plea, an unidentified person commented in a text message: "Is it wrong that I am smiling?" Someone joked in another text that the youngsters referred to by Sokolich "are the children of Buono voters" — a reference to Christie's Democratic opponent for governor, state Sen. Barbara Buono.
Also among the
correspondence, some of which was blacked out, is an email from
Wildstein to Kelly on Sept. 7, two days before the lane closings. He
said he would call her "to let you know how Fort Lee goes."
Most
of the emails were sent using private accounts rather than government
ones, which would be subject to open records laws and therefore public.
The
Democratic National Committee seized on the disclosures, releasing a
web video that details Christie's prior assurances that neither he nor
his staff had anything to do with the lane closings.
"I've
made it to very clear to everybody on my senior staff that if anyone
had any knowledge about this that they needed to come forward to me and
tell me about it, and they've all assured me that they don't," Christie
said in mid-December.
Wasserman-Schultz
said the new material proves that "the governor's office ordered lane
closures that were intended to make first responders experience delays,
kids sit gridlocked on the first day of school, and commuters hit
logjams, to punish the Democratic mayor who didn't endorse Chris
Christie's re-election bid."
Sokolich said that because of the
traffic backup, emergency calls that average a two- or four-minute
response time took up to 16 minutes.
"To
me it's appalling and I got to tell you, somebody owes a lot of people a
lot of apologies," he said. "Somebody ought to contact families waiting
two, three, four times the response times when their loved ones had
chest pains. Someone has to apologize to the thousands of families who
couldn't get their kids to the first day of school on time."
Fort
Lee Councilwoman Ila Kasofsky said she knows of one woman who couldn't
get over the bridge to be with her husband, who was undergoing a stem
cell transplant, and another who couldn't get to New York to be with her
son as he went through kidney dialysis.
Also, she said, the heavy traffic delayed the search for a missing child, who was later found.
"I think this is 10 times worse than Watergate. Because this affected so many more lives and their health and safety," she said.
___
Associated Press writers Katie Zezima in Newark, N.J., and Steve Peoples in Washington contributed.
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