Free Republic

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, after a low-key initial response to Friday’s explosive allegations about his involvement in a bridge-closing scandal, mounted an aggressive defense late Saturday afternoon, attacking The New York Times and a former political ally in an email to friends and allies obtained by POLITICO. “Bottom line — David Wildstein will do and say anything to save David Wildstein,” the email from the governor’s office says, referring to the former appointee who reignited the controversy.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's former campaign manager will plead the Fifth Amendment when he is asked about his role in an apparent plot to create a traffic jam in Fort Lee, N.J., according to a filing from his lawyer. The campaign manager, Bill Stepien, was one of two people disciplined for his actions related to the access lane closures, shortly after the apparent scheme was disclosed in a series of e-mails and text messages...

The former Port Authority official who personally oversaw the lane closings on the George Washington Bridge in the scandal now swirling around Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said on Friday that the governor knew about the lane closings when they were happening, and that he had the evidence to prove it. In a letter released by his lawyer, the official, David Wildstein, a high school friend of Mr. Christie’s who was appointed with the governor’s blessing at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controls the bridge, described the order to close the lanes as “the...

Instead of getting to the truth of the Bridgegate affair, the new Legislative Select Committee on Investigation is looking more likely to obscure or distort the facts. **SNIP** But the Democratic majority structured the committee in ways guaranteed to cast doubt on its findings. Moreover, it has no mechanism for public input, no ceiling on costs and no limits on its scope or methods. For starters: With eight Democrats and four Republicans, the group’s extreme partisan imbalance undercuts any sense of shared purpose. Such a brazenly stacked deck sets the stage for unproductive bickering instead of thoughtful debate. The lack...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's re-election campaign and the state's Republican Party committee have received subpoenas from federal prosecutors investigating allegations that his aides created traffic jams as political payback. Mark Sheridan, a lawyer representing Christie for Governor and the Republican State Committee, tells The Associated Press the subpoenas are for documents related to the closure of traffic lanes near the George Washington Bridge. A state legislative committee investigating the traffic jams has also issued subpoenas to the two organizations. Sheridan says the Republican governor's campaign and the party will cooperate with investigators. The traffic lane closures created gridlock in...

If anyone thinks "Bridgegate" is an example of political bullying and abuse of power, then the sworn (under penalty of perjury) allegation of a corporate heavy hitter against Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner is off the charts. Bloomberg Businessweek reports: Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told McGraw Hill Financial Inc. Chairman Harold W. McGraw III in 2011 that Standard & Poor's downgrade of the U.S. debt would be met by a response, S&P said. S&P filed a declaration by McGraw yesterday in federal court in Santa Ana, California, as part of a request to force the U.S. to...

"We are thrilled..." Dawn Zimmer, Mayor of Hoboken, NJ May 22, 2013 This week, Dawn Zimmer, Mayor of Hoboken, New Jersey, has hit the media with accusations that NJ Lieutenant Governor, Kim Guadagno, threatened to withhold Hurricane Sandy Relief funding if Zimmer didn't throw her support behind a Rockefeller development project. Zimmer claimed earlier this week in an interview with MSNBC that, on May 13, 2013, she was approached by Lt. Governor Guadagno who suggested that the release of Hurricane Sandy Relief funds was contingent upon Zimmer's support of the "Rockefeller Project." According to Zimmer, Guadango was speaking on behalf...

The media quickly came up with a term for the apparently politically orchestrated George Washington Bridge traffic jam: "Bridgegate." Now what catchy term do the media attach to the explosive new book castigating the incumbent wartime commander in chief? "Gatesgate"? Hardly. Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is suspected of orchestrating, for political payback, a traffic jam on the GW Bridge. "Meet the Press" spent more than half of its most recent show -- 28 minutes not counting commercials -- on "Bridgegate," less than 11 minutes on the Gates' allegations, another 12 minutes reporting on women living in poverty and...

During the 2012 presidential campaign, somehow each and every Republican presidential contender had a sink thrown at him (or her) via what reporters call "investigative journalism." Every time a Republican rose in the polls, the media tried to knock him or her down, like a game of Whac-A-Mole. The very last man standing was Mitt Romney, who didn't receive the official "Gotcha!" from The Washington Post until May, with a 5,000-word opus on "Teenage Haircutgate." That's why it's so strange the national media would decide so early it was time for journalistic carpet bombing of the Great Squishy Northeastern Hope...

Finally Bridgegate has its own Woodward and Bernstein and his name is Chris Hayes or Mr. Rachel Maddow. Is he all in? You bet, he’s all in.Do you want to see this man talk about New Jersey traffic for one hour? Are you an MSNBC viewer? Then of course you do. It’s either that or Al Sharpton talking about how the Tea Party is just like the Klan or Ed Schultz talking about how the Tea Party is just like the Klan or Melissa Harris Perry talking about how the Tea Party is just like the Klan.Bridgegate is a chance...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Can I share with you something? This whole Chris Christie business. I said that when he first got out of trouble, it was noticeable to me that none of the other wildebeests came to his defense, other RINOs. He was just left to sink or swim on his own, and none of the Democrats that supposedly like him and have worked with him and Obama -- nobody -- rushed to his aide. Which is classic, by the way. But there's something else about this. If you watched the Sunday shows yesterday -- which I didn't. I get...

“Mr. Rove has grown so controversial among some conservatives,” the NYT wrote recently, citing GOP sources, “that candidates worry that donors will not contribute to a super PAC if it is connected to [Rove's group American] Crossroads.” You trust a guy in that position, whose personal brand is now sufficiently toxic among righties that it can alter fundraising battle plans, to have a sharp read into the thinking of tea partiers, don’t you?On the other hand, he’s not totally wrong. I noticed over the weekend how conservative media, including columnists, are starting to pay attention to the amount of coverage...

We got ourselves a good Republican scandal here, and we're sticking with it. No distractions about President Obama and his culpability in the IRS and Benghazi matters. Capiche? That was Mika Brezinski's message on Morning Joe today. When Mark Halperin mentioned that President Obama has never subjected himself to the kind of intense media grilling on Benghazi and the IRS that Chris Christie underwent on the bridge scandal during his 109-minute press conference, Mika laid down the law. Bringing up Benghazi and the IRS is "flailing for some sort of distraction. It's Chris Christie. It's New Jersey. Stick to that...

Assemblyman John Wisniewski told the Daily News that he is convinced that 'laws were broken,' and said Christie could possibly be impeached if it turns out he had knowledge of the political payback scheme. Hours earlier, State Assembly Speaker-elect Vincent Prieto announced he planned to subpoena more emails and documents in the investigation. The New Jersey assemblyman leading the Gov. Chris Christie Bridgegate probe says he’s convinced “laws were broken.” “We had public employees use public resources for a political purpose,” Assemblyman John Wisniewski told the Daily News Saturday. “They closed the lanes of the George Washington Bridge to exact...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie strode to the microphones in Trenton Wednesday night and took an hour of reporters’ tough questions about a plot by staffers to punish Fort Lee’s Democratic mayor by snarling his city’s traffic for four days. Penitent, occasionally defiant, Christie insisted he didn’t know about the scheme. But he said he took full responsibility for the scandal, apologized to the citizens of Fort Lee and promised to get to the bottom of what happened. Oh wait. That’s not what Christie did at all. The famously fearless governor canceled his one public appearance of the day, ignored...

Democratic Party donor Rosemarie Arnold boasts that she’s the “Queen of Torts” based on a history of filing suits like a $30 million dollar dog bite lawsuit. Other attorneys don’t seem to think too highly of the Queen of Torts and her tactics. Which brings us back to Rosemarie Arnold and her claim on behalf of the child that he suffered a $30M injury to his ear. There are only two reasons for Ms. Arnold to do this: 1. The Queen of Torts is actually ignorant of the law; or 2. Rosmarie Arnold willfully elected to ignore the law, in...

Or maybe Chris Christie could say what most in the White House or MSM say or what most pro-Democrat shills in cable media say (be it on Fox News, CNN or MSNBC): he [Obama] was in the dark about this. Chris Christie was in the dark about this? Or could he pull a Hillary and say: what difference now does it make?

Christie, 51, leads the Republican Governors Association and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley was one of the few members to stand in support with Christie, expressing her support after his press conference. Rudy Giuliani came out to support Christie on Friday and RNC Chair Reince Priebus praised Christie for his transparency.

“I am not a bully.” That’s yesterday’s takeaway line from Gov. Chris Christie, the most unforgettable quote from a New Jersey governor since Jim McGreevey in 2004: “I am a gay American.” Not to mention the most memorable quote from a Republican since Richard Nixon in 1973: “I am not a crook.” I’m no fan of Chris Christie, not since he acted as Obama’s head cheerleader after Superstorm Sandy in the run-up to the 2012 election. He’s a RINO’s RINO (Republican in name only). Gave a Senate seat to the Democrats a year early, supports in-state tuition for illegal aliens....

... The e-mail sent by Christie aide Bridget Kelly to the Port Authority executive behind the lane closures was dated August 13th, 2013, “the order to unleash hell on Fort Lee.” And Maddow believed Christie “very convincingly quashed” the idea that this was because of a refusal to endorse, but connected the dots to suggest another motivation. In 2010, Christie took the unprecedented step of refusing to reappoint a New Jersey Supreme Court justice for another term, which set off the New Jersey Democrats, who got back at Christie by shooting down all the other Supreme Court justice nominees he...