The thousands of documents released Friday show that Port Authority official David Wildstein went to great lengths to create a cover story.
Wildstein and the top aide to Gov. Chris Christie who set him in motion might actually have been able to pass it all off as a traffic study rather than unconscionable political payback.
Wildstein gave the supposed test the official sounding name “TL24.” He even put together a PowerPoint presentation complete with photos and charts. The title page read:
“Reallocation of Toll Lanes at the GWB.
An EARLY Assessment of the Benefits of the Trials.
September 12, 2013.”
The results were summarized as:
“TBD”
Meaning “to be determined,” which is a pretty good description of how it will play out with regard to Christie’s political future.
The latest documents make the four days of closings seem all the more reckless and reprehensible. Various emails from three days before the closings show that Port Authority supervisors were surprised and alarmed by the plan to close two of the three toll booths that service the Fort Lee entrance.
“A single toll lane operation invites potential disaster,” wrote Jerry Quealch of Port Authority planning and operations. “It seems like we will be punishing all for the sake of a few.”
He added at the bottom, “Very confused.”
In another email, a puzzled Port Authority supervisor named Daniel Jacobs asked, “What is driving this?”
A Port Authority Police email indicates that Wildstein was personally on hand to witness the effect when the toll booths in question were closed on Sept. 9, not by accident the first day of school. He was undeterred by reports that the resulting traffic was impeding the Fort Lee police and paramedics from responding to emergencies.
The closings continued for three more days until the executive director, Patrick Foye, stepped in to reopen them.
Of course NONE of this cover story makes any sense, in that even a complete moron could recognize that closing several lanes of traffic on the busiest bridge in the world would cause huge problems.
However Wildstein pushed forward with that excuse, and even reached out for help in constructing the story.
Emails show that Wildstein sought and received the counsel of Christie’s press secretary, Michael Drewniak.
“Need to talk to you soon, in person,” Wildstein wrote on Dec. 3.
The two met the following evening.
“Thanks again for all your sound advice last night,” Wildstein emailed him on Dec. 5.
“Thanks for a great dinner,” Drewniak replied.
Drewniak can insist, as does his boss the governor, that at that point he still believed the closing was part of a traffic study.
However to do so would be almost an admission of guilt as that story was already coming apart at the seams after this e-mail exchange was made public.
“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” Kelly wrote on Aug. 13.
“Got it,” Wildstein replied just a minute later.
Openly identifying it as causing "traffic problems" and demonstrating the kind of shorthand that indicates that they had worked together on the planning stages, makes it impossible for this to be seen as anything legitimate.
And the possibility that these two cooked this up without direction from the Governor, who is accused of running his organization like a "paramilitary operation," is simply too ridiculous to take seriously.
By the way it is also worth noting that apparently the Port Authority police officers were apparently directed to blame the bridge closing on the Mayor of Fort Lee:
In a letter to a Port Authority executive on Sept. 12, Fort Lee, N.J. Mayor Mark Sokolich complained that the agency's police officers were telling commuters that the George Washington Bridge lane closings were his fault.
"[M]any members of the public have indicated to me that the Port Authority Police Officers are advising commuters in response to their complaints that this recent traffic debacle is the result of a decision that I, as the Mayor, recently made," Sokolich wrote to Bill Baroni, who was the deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey until he resigned last month.
Are we really to believe that they came up with that all by themselves?
No, I think that we all need to brace ourselves for the seismic shock that is about to occur after Chris Chirstie's political career finally falls from the skies and crashes down to earth. It's going to be a BIG one.
It took awhile to tie Nixon directly to Watergate, too. I'm sure that Christie is directly involved and he is probably the mastermind. His bullying characteristics have been documented way too many times to think he is an innocent bystander in this fiasco.
ReplyDeleteWhile most of the media were letting Watergate fade to the back pages, a pair of reporters and an editor keep the heat on, until the conflagration was hard to ignore. Bridgegate has exploded much more quickly.
DeleteAnd leave it to Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell and others to keep the heat on.
DeleteGO RACH ! !
I think we can thank Rachel Maddow and her dogged pursuit and digging at this fiasco. Maybe it was talked about elsewhere, but she seems to be the one who has been coolly and persistently connecting the dots on this one.
DeleteRachel Maddow is one of the few real journalists left in the media today. She's extremely smart and always does her homework. All of her stories are thoroughly researched and she's no shrinking violet when it comes to tough interviews, although she's never rude or disrespectful.
DeleteI imagine she surrounds herself with top notch staff who work as hard as she does.
I agree, Rachel is smart and a good journalist.
DeleteWhy she let Palin get away with a poorly faked pregnancy is beyond me. I've sent her many emails asking her to look at the solid facts that can't be refuted:
CBJ is a FPP, not a high risk OB. She'd never ever in a million years be Palin's doctor is a true high risk pregnancy. CBJ also did not have malpractice insurance to be a high risk OB. No way in hell would any sane MD risk being PAlin's physician were she actually pregnant.
This is the key Rachel/
Pulitzer baby.
In the emails, it doesn't seem like Foye knew what was going on and he was infuriated when he wrote the letter reopening them and made no mention of a traffic study. The reporter from the Wall Street Journal saw that and called them on it and then Foye was, like…I didn't send an email…
ReplyDeleteYou gotta read through the documents at TPM. It's crazy.
The WSJ reporter also reported on the fact that Wildstein was on the scene, supervising the lane closures and he asked about it and he got no response.
Go through the documents and you see that, from the start, they were totally stonewalling the media on this. Why? Why not just say, Hey, it's a traffic study…
But Mann filed his FOIAs and he knew it wasn't really a traffic study so he asked for a copy of the traffic study and AGAIN they didn't get back to him.
Also, it should be noted that AT LEAST one other person was involved in the conversation because that text about "Is it wrong that I'm smiling?" was from someone whose name was redacted. So…who was that third person?
DeleteIt was Bridget Kelly
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/bridget-kelly-was-the-texter
"Is is wrong that I'm smiling?"
DeleteWouldn't put it past him, but could it be Governor Bipartisanshit himself?
All kidding aside, these cush jobs are given to the Governor's best and closest friends, many of them since childhood. Christie doesn't come off as one who had many, if any close friends, he's got skid marks because all it takes is one of these "Friends" to catapult his butt and his career over the bridge. Doesn't quite burnish his creds either, to leave a story like this simmer for so long.
Jail time coming to some of these folks!!! Starting at the top will be a good start. The guy is a fraud and liar....
ReplyDeleteSo wish something along this line would follow Sarah and Todd Palin. We, in Alaska, know they are corrupt, liars and frauds.
The costs alone for putting this charade into motion are staggering. Four days of traffic and lost business to those affected. Port Authority staff to do the cone zone. I don;t think Gov Fat Bastard is going to write a check to cover costs like he did when he abused his power when using the State Police helicopter to go to his sons baseball game a couple years ago using those assets..
DeleteI hope the stripes are vertical. Horizontal stripes are so unflattering to a fella's figure.
Delete3:41 PM
DeleteJail time coming to some of these folks!!! Starting at the top will be a good start. The guy is a fraud and liar....
So wish something along this line would follow Sarah and Todd Palin. We, in Alaska, know they are corrupt, liars and frauds.
****
Alasssska dropped the ball on troopergate b/c Sarah was going to DC doncha know!
They DROPPED it!
TrooperGATE was at least something that could of put her away and made her STFU!
Isn't she on the ballot for Senate in AK? When will you guys learn?
When I setup a study in network management, I had to id the critical missions and get sign off for a kill trigger for each. That is, for every vital area, we had to show we would be measuring and could end the study immediately if the system was degraded in a vital area.
ReplyDeleteThe NY/NJ Port Authority is chock full of very highly paid people. Director of Bridges/Tunnels makes around $200,000 in salary alone. It is REALLY, REALLY, REALLY hard for me to believe a bogus study could have tied up traffic in Fort Lee for 4 long days. There had to be complicity on the highest levels and some pretty big payoffs in cash or favors to keep the game going that long.
I think a lot of people were interested in keeping the lid on this mess for this many months. And now, they'll sink Christie in an attempt to cover themselves. But Christie is a very vicious fighter. He'll be ousted, but he'll take out as many people as he can on his way out/down.
I vividly recall the Saturday Night Massacre of the Watergate Era. it really did seem as though the government might just disintegrate. Christie's stupid little game probably won't reach that level. But bigger fish that Christie are sweating right now.
It MIGHT have been slightly plausible that it was planned and executed by lower level staff and that Christie knew nothing about it IF it had lasted only a few hours before being stopped. However, it continued long after frantic phone calls and emails were received from mayors, emergency service providers, and top ranking police and PA staff.
DeleteFor it to continue for four days, there HAD to be a lot of pressure from the highest levels and Christie HAD to have known what was going on. If he wasn't involved in planning the incident and/or giving permission for it to be done, he certainly had to have been made aware of the crisis withing hours after it began. He deliberately chose to allow it to continue and to put people's lives at risk, as well as businesses in two states.
Hopefully, this will permanently sink his political career and prevent him from ever seeking higher office.
I worked for eleven years under the Florio Administration. Yes, he was as corrupt as they come, but there's absolutely no way his "underlings" could get away with a prank this costly and corrupt without his knowing it. The GWBridge, FWIW, was poorly designed for the amount of traffic that goes over it each day. It's the only convenient way to get from New Jersey (through Fort Lee) and into New York. Add to that the loops and hoops of road one needs to navigate just to get on the bridge. It's two levels with train and bus traffic on one and cars on the other. Even one lane closed can cause a huge backup.
DeleteThe GWBridge and the infrastructure that feeds it was at best, minimally planned and not good enough to move the amount of traffic it carries every day. I worked for eleven years under the Florio administration, he was a good governor but corrupt as hell (if that makes any sense), he did what was right for the people, and those around him would never get something this epic of a disaster to happen under his watch because he had a structure in place where everything had to go through him.
DeleteOne lane closure is a huge deal. It's basically the only game in town for getting to and from New York. It's two levels, one for trains and busses, the other for cars, trucks and limousines.
This may or may not sink the uss Christie, but it'll screw up his plans for politics in the future.
" Christie's stupid little game probably won't reach that level. But bigger fish that Christie are sweating right now."
Delete******
Trying to squash it now...
"Christie investigator says subpoena powers in doubt "
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2014/01/8538656/christie-investigator-says-subpoena-powers-doubt
DAMN!?!
Everybody knew but him!!
ReplyDeleteAnother "inner circle" person (his incoming chief of staff) who supposedly didn't talk to Christie about the bridge situation...
Regina Egea, then the director of Mr. Christie's Authorities Unit and now his incoming chief of staff, received word of the lane closures and resulting traffic chaos in Fort Lee, N.J., just three hours after the closures were ordered to be reversed by a New York official on Sept. 13.
Ms. Egea is a longtime member of Mr. Christie's inner circle and one of his ten most senior staff members. The emails show the highest levels of Mr. Christie's staff were made aware of the traffic problems in Fort Lee as early as Sept. 13–five days after they began and the day they were reversed. The governor said Thursday the closures may have been a "political vendetta" by his aides against the borough's mayor.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303393804579314500006896102?mod=New_York_newsreel_1
Here's a good one:
ReplyDelete"Five Reasons Chris Christie Might Be Lying --
Applying the techniques of lie detection to Christie's press conference yields some very interesting results"
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/11/5_reasons_chris_christie_might_be_lying/
Sure, lie detection is hardly a foolproof "science" ...
But if you imagine you're about to hear from someone who's 100% committed to finding out the truth behind 'Bridgegate' (as Christie purports to be) and then start listening to his 2-hour press conference, you'll be scratching your head in the first 10 minutes.
BRIDGEGHAZI ! ! BRIDGEGHAZI ! ! BRIDGEGHAZI ! !
DeleteNo need to imitate the mating call of the Tea Party Loon ...
DeleteThey'll screw you without your having to ask.
I loved the Salon article. They forgot my favorite, "His lips are moving". Yes, his mother was Sicilian, so you bet he's expressive with his hand movements usually. During that lie fest, he looked like a deer in the headlights, kept repeating little lies hoping they'd not ask more about the big lies.
DeleteWhat tells me there's much much more coming down the pike is it's only saturday and this story's sucking more oxygen than Christie getting a dozen Crispie Cremes home while they're still hot.
DeleteWhy didn't Foye move to reopen the bridge sooner if he had the authority to do so?
ReplyDeleteThe NY/NJ Port Authority costs a bundle to run. The staff is expensive. And what do we get for all those dollars, a bunch of clowns that can't handle a a few bridge lanes closed because of traffic study nobody knows anything about. If the situation was so damn critical, then what do we pay Port Authority for?
DeleteIt sounds to me like Port Authority couldn't get off it's fat little rear without some nursemaiding from the Gov. of NY.
Regardless of who triggered the ratfucking political prank, Port Authority should have reacted within HOURS not days.
I'm disgusted with the whole corrupt lot.
I've been wondering that myself. He should have been able to:
Delete1. Determine within minutes if there really WAS a traffic study.
2. Make the decision that the lanes and toll booths needed to be reopened immediately.
3. Made damn sure he found out who created this whole mess and deal with them, either firing them or, if he didn't have the authority himself, insisting that their supervisor do it.
That's one thing that makes me think this goes all the way to Christie's desk and no one was willing to directly contradict his orders until it became a crisis situation and couldn't be ignored any longer.
The documents that have been released by the legislature show a daily list of media issues for the Port Authority that are distributed each evening. The first time the bridge was mentioned was the when Foye acted. Those who knew were refusing to talk to the media about what was happening - and it seems those who could stop it - did not know it was happening.
DeleteMonday Sept 9 - no mention
Tuesday Sept 10 - no mention
Wed Sept 11 - 6.27 pm port authority nightly media activity 9/12/13
John Cichowski of Bergen Record inquired about a change in the amount of toll lanes available to Ft Lee residents at the GWB. We told the reporter that the Port Authority is reviewing traffic safety patterns at the GWB and that PAPD has been in contact with Fort Lee PD throughout the transition
On Frisay morning 13 Sep at 7.44am Foye sent off his email that reopened the bridge.
See the start of the documents submitted by Foye to the inquiry
I had the same visceral reaction to Christie that I did with palin the first time I saw them in action. Same smarmy, sarcastic mean spirited attitude. They are cut from the same cloth, using people for their own political gain with no evidence of a conscience. If that fat cat can be brought down it might give some of palin's victims a little burst of courage to step up. We can only hope.
ReplyDeleteIt's the time@
DeleteMy 4:18 comment was in no way directed towards Gryph. He has done more than ANYone out there to try and expose this corrupt vermin and I appreciate everything he does.
DeletePalin's big mistake?
DeleteThat chit's coming.
Wendy Davis, Texas Gubernatorial Candidate, Wants Big Changes For Education
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/10/wendy-davis-education_n_4577323.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
"The fat fuck's gonna get us all pinched."
ReplyDelete-Jimmy Conway in GoodFellas
4;21 GOOD ONE ! HAHAHAHAHA!! Christie's, I'm above it all attitude is killing me
DeleteTY for the laugh and the memory!
DeleteI'm waiting for Christie to waddle into a presser and announce it was Sarah Palin's fault. You know he had to be warned about the Sarah curse bombing people's careers.
DeleteAre all of these people involved just willing to fall on their swords for Christie? If so, why? Is it just 'loyalty'? Their reputations will be damaged. Are they getting some type of compensation?
ReplyDeleteIf any of that is the case, I wonder if any litigation that involve large financial penalties and/or jail time might change that.
That NJ rethugs pulled this felony on the anniversary of 9/11 sure has been downplayed. 9/11 people. And the George Washington Bridge is one of THE TOP TERRORIST TARGETS IN THE USA. Everyone involved should be charged as a domestic terrorist under the Patriot Act.
ReplyDeleteDamn 4:33 you are right!!!!
DeleteChristie is not a stupid man. I don't think he could have dreamed up something this stupid. I truly believe that this was an evil prank concocted by some bored underlings. Just sayin'.
ReplyDelete