NEWARK, N.J. _ Bridget Anne Kelly testified Monday that she told New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in September 2013 that a mayor had expressed concern that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had closed lanes at the George Washington Bridge as part of "government retribution."
"It's a Port Authority project. Let (David) Wildstein handle it," Christie told Kelly, referring to a then-Port Authority official, according to her testimony.
"That was the end of it," she told jurors.
Kelly, Christie's former deputy chief of staff, and Bill Baroni, Christie's former top executive appointee at the Port Authority, are each charged with nine felony counts, including misusing Port Authority resources, in connection with the lane closures.
Kelly testified Monday that she received an Sept. 12 email from a subordinate indicating that Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich had called a staffer in the governor's office complaining about the traffic jams and musing that "there is a feeling in town that this is government retribution for something."
At the end of a long day in August in Seaside Heights, where Christie and Kelly had been responding to a boardwalk fire, Kelly alerted Christie to Sokolich's concern, she testified.
The governor has denied having any prior or contemporaneous knowledge of the Sept. 9-13, 2013, lane closures, which prosecutors allege were orchestrated to punish Democrat Sokolich for his refusal to endorse the governor's re-election campaign in 2013.
Kelly testified Friday that she told Christie a month before the lane closures that the Port Authority would be conducting a traffic study that would create "tremendous traffic problems" in Fort Lee. The Republican governor told Kelly he was "fine" with the study, she told jurors.
Wildstein, then a top Christie operative at the Port Authority, told Kelly in June 2013 that he had been developing a study with engineers and police officers at the agency, Kelly said Friday. She said he asked her to run the plan by the governor.
Prosecutors allege that Kelly conspired with Wildstein and Baroni to cause massive traffic jams at the bridge in order to punish Sokolich for his refusal to endorse Christie. Then they covered it up by calling the lane realignment a traffic study, according to prosecutors and testimony from Wildstein, a cooperating witness who pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in 2015.
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