Prosecution testimony in the “Bridgegate” trial of two former aides to Chris Christie began to draw the New Jersey governor ever closer to the scandal in its first week, even as Christie campaigns for Donald Trump for president.
On Friday, David Wildstein, a former staffer to former Port Authority deputy executive director Bill Baroni, as well as former Christie aide Bridget Kelly, described how Christie had transformed the agency, which runs major bridge, tunnels and airports in the New York area, into a personal fiefdom designed to aide his 2013 re-election.
Wildstein, who has confessed to coming up with the scheme for lane closures to the George Washington Bridge in September 2013 and later struck an immunity deal with prosecutors, told the court that everything he did in his job was for the benefit of the governor.
“The only person that had to be happy was Governor Christie,” Wildstein said. “We used that as the barometer by which a decision would be made at the Port Authority.”
An email by Wildstein revealed in court said the Christie administration considered the $8bn-a-year Port Authority a “goody bag” to distribute favors, money and jobs. Wildstein testified that he was hired be the “bad cop” to push Christie’s agenda at the authority.
“If it was good for Christie, then it was good for us,” he said.
The former aide said Christie and his senior staff ordered him to use the agency to influence local elected officials in Christie’s favor. Entrepreneurial enterprises included hanging 100 flags over Ground Zero and packaging them with certificates of authenticity, so that they could then be distributed by the governor’s office.
“That was the system that had been established,” Wildstein testified. “All use of Port Authority resources had to be approved by the governor’s office.” The Port Authority, he said, “was asked to play a role in helping the governor’s office secure certain endorsements”.
Earlier, the jury heard from Fort Lee mayor Mark Sokolich, whose town lies at the foot of the bridge. A Democrat, Sokolich described how Christie aides at first tried to curry his endorsement with gifts, including trips up the new, partially constructed World Trade Center, a flag that had flown over Ground Zero and lengthy lunches at the governor’s mansion in Trenton.
Documents later shown to the court appeared to confirm his account, showing that favors to Sokolich included Port Authority money for shuttle buses in the town, steel from the destroyed World Trade Center given to the town as a gift by the Port Authority, as well as the two tours.
But when Sokolich indicated that he would not endorse the Republican governor, the mood abruptly changed.
It was then, the court heard, that Bridget Kelly sent her now notorious email: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”
Three consecutive days of lane closures to the entrance of the bridge reduced traffic in Fort Lee to a state of “total gridlock”.
Sokolich testified that he’d tried to reach Christie aides, including Baroni, but was stonewalled. By the third day of disruption, Sokolich testified, he was forced to conclude “the only plausible reason” for the closures “is someone is mad at me”.
Prosecutors have argued that Baroni and Wildstein gloated to Christie about purposely ignoring the desperate calls from Sokolich, saying that shutting the lanes meant a “public safety emergency”.
Christie, who was reportedly hoping to use his 2013 re-election as a springboard for a White House run, has repeatedly denied knowledge of the bridge-closing plan. His aides, including Baroni, portrayed the closures as part of traffic study.
Though he was not charged in the case, Christie’s reputation was tarnished, and it may have been a factor inTrump’s decision not to select the governor as his running mate. Trump himself said during the primaries, while he and Christie were rivals, that he believed the governor had been fully aware of the “Bridgegate” plan.
“The evidence may show that others could have, should have, perhaps known certain aspects of what was going on in Fort Lee,” prosecutor Vikas Khanna told the jury. “Perhaps you will even wonder what happened to those people.”
The trial is to resume this week.
