Is There Any Chance Christie Did NOT Know About the Dirty Tricks?

“It is true that I met David in 1977 in high school. He’s a year older than me. David and I were not friends in high school. We were not even acquaintances in high school… We didn’t travel in the same circles in high school. You know, I was the class president and athlete. I don’t know what David was doing during that period of time. … So I want to clear that up.”
Now that David Wildstein is claiming, according to a letter from his lawyer, that “evidence exists” Christie knew about the decision to close the bridge, I bet he wishes he had said something different.
Something like…
“If I didn’t exchange any words with David in high school or travel in his circles, it was because – well, to be perfectly honest with you, I found him intimidating. I was — I guess you could say I was in awe of the guy. And who wouldn’t be in awe of him? I might have been class president and athlete. David was so cool he didn’t NEED to be either of those things.
“Sometimes, after getting off the field, I would glance over at him to see if he had noticed me scoring. That-was-for-you-David, I would mouth. He never even looked up.
“For years there were only two big unattainable figures who loomed over my life: Bruce Springsteen and David Wildstein. His coolness level? Somewhere between Batman… and God.
“If I wasn’t friends with David Wildstein in high school, it was because I was too timid to approach him.
“In my eyes, David Wildstein was a golden god. I was the Gene to his Phineas. I was the Harry Potter to his Neville, in the sense that Neville turned out to be kind of amazing and has gotten better and better looking with the passage of time, whereas Harry is just an athlete with bad hair who turned out to be a lot shorter than anyone was hoping.
“Different circles, sure, but what about the countless hours I spent doodling his name in my notebooks – not in a romantic way, mind you. I just – I think, on some level, I wanted to BE David Wildstein. On every level.
“I had a picture of David Wildstein in my locker.
“I only wish I’d gotten to know him better back then because David Wildstein is just such an incredible, wonderful man. Beautiful, yeah, but more than that. He’s the kind of guy you can trust with your life. If I had a secret involving a bridge – and I don’t – I know who I would tell, and who would take it with him to the grave. To the grave, David.
“Because that’s the kind of guy David Wildstein is.
“And to reiterate, he was THE MAN in high school.

That's funny

The offense will be some e-mail or diary entry written at the time saying that he was jumping up and down happy hi fiving the gang.

Check out some of her other stuff

Calling his deputy chief of staff Bridget Anne Kelly “stupid” and “deceitful,” he threw her off the bridge, without talking to her himself or, as Niall O’Dowd slyly wrote in IrishCentral.com, even extending the courtesy of the old Irish wedding night admonition: “Brace yourself, Bridget.”

What he instead said “evidence exists” showing Christie knew of those closures “during the period when the lanes were closed.”

Two problems:

One: Just what is that evidence? For all we know it could be nothing more than that photo of Christie and Wildstein at a Sept. 11 memorial across the river in Manhattan. Whatever was said between them that day apparently went unrecorded. But maybe Wildstein has a record. Or maybe not.

Simply being aware of the closures is not in itself a big deal. Perhaps 50,000 people witnessed those traffic jams. Maybe a million more heard them reported on the radio. But traffic jams happen every day. Knowledge of the jam itself is meaningless if the governor did not also know that the cause was political retribution rather than a traffic study.


Two: In Christie’s response, he said that he only learned of the closure when it was reported in the press. That was in the Sept. 13 edition of the Bergen Record, which went to print before the closures were ended that day.

What he is alleging is that Christie gave a different version of when he learned of the closures in that notorious two-hour press conference of Jan. 9. He’s right on that. Here’s Christie’s answer to a question on when he first learned of the closures:

“I don't know what else to say except to tell them that I had no knowledge of this -- of the planning, the execution or anything about it -- and that I first found out about it after it was over.”

And then there was this from the Dec. 13 press conference:

“Factually it did not get to me, um the first I ever heard about the issue was when it was reported in the press, which I think was in the aftermath of Mr. – the leaking of Mr. Foye’s email. I think that was the first I heard of it, but it was certainly after the whole thing was over.”

The Foye e-mail leaked in a Wall Street Journal article, which came out four days after the Record article. So as you can see from the accompanying clips, it sure looks like our governor ignored his late mother’s advice concerning sticking to one version of the truth.

But even if you grant that, we’re talking about a difference in a few days in when he learned of the closures. If I may quote Hillary Clinton, “What possible difference could that make?” The real question in that regard is whether he in any way ordered the closure as political payback. And nothing in this current flap gives evidence that he did.

It’s certainly possible Wildstein has such evidence, or that someone else does. But that’s not at issue here.

And as I’ve noted, the real issue should not just be whether Christie was in on the planning but also whether he was in on the cover-up. What I find impossible to believe is Christie’s statement in that Jan. 9 news conference that he honestly believed there was a real traffic study right up until those e-mails came out.

If so, he’s too stupid to be governor. That press conference came a month after Foye testified to the Assembly Transportation Committee that there was no study. Foye was backed up by two officials who were involved in day-to-day operations of the bridge.

That’s when the governor should have gone to Fort Lee and apologized to the mayor and the residents. At that point he could have put the blame on Wildstein and Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni for running such a shoddy “study.” Even if that study had been legit, that would be no excuse for stranding all those drivers in traffic with no warning. The Gov could have covered his butt by making that move.

Instead he tried to tough it out till Jan. 14, when the Legislative session ended and the committee lost its subpoena power. My Democratic sources tell me that Christie had made a deal with Democratic leaders to deep-six the probe in the next session. He clearly hoped that the firings of Wildstein and Baroni would be enough to assuage his critics – and they might have been if Wildstein had not been such an assiduous collector of e-mails.

Alas, those e-mails broke just a few days before the session ended. At that point everyone realized just how deeply the administration was involved in the lane closure as well as the cover-up.

As for what the governor knew and when he knew it, though, this little tiff provides enlightenment on only one point: The governor should spend less time talking about his late mother and more time following her advice.

[Christie has one thing going for him: Wildstein is a psychopath.
Christie has one thing going against him: Wildstein is a psychopath.

Which may be why he was on his team in the first place.

For the sake of the country, I hope he now is toast!

I see that its difficult for you to maintain objectivity throughout this whole affair, so I usually discount most of your opinions of Christie.
Q: Is it possible that Wildstein is lying merely to gain immunity for himself?


A: YES

Q: Is it also possible that Christie is lying?

A:YES

So we have two opposed theories , each with narrative support but no real verifiable evidence


Its gonna be an interesting run-up to 2016 for Christie.