BridgeTrolls: Developments Worth Noting

7 Comments

1. 

   Marie2 on April 25, 2014 at 5:01 pm

   Scott Raab at Esquire weighing in on today’s developments: It’s Time For Some SEC Problems For Chris Christie.  Nice distillation and wording here:

   …Christie preferred swiping the tunnel money from the Port Authority.

   To do so meant twisting some arms, including those attached to the PA lawyers, who quite properly told Christie’s goons that the Port could not legally reallocate the $2 billion of tunnel bucks to the New Jersey road-repair projects. Didn’t faze Christie — nor did the statute requiring that any such switcheroo be approved by both the New York and New Jersey legislatures. Christie’s enforcer at the Port, Bill Baroni, told the PA lawyers to find a way, and so they did. They decided that the New Jersey roads were ‘access roads’ to the Lincoln Tunnel — nonsense to anyone familiar with North Jersey terrain — thereby koshering the shakedown, which was, of course, unanimously approved by the Port Authority Board of Commissioners, chaired by Christie’s consigliere, David Samson.

   Raab then goes to what should be an obvious question in this corrupt conspiracy plot:

   By keeping all of this on the down low, Christie and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Christie’s Port Authority business partner, managed to pull off this heist without either state legislature making a peep. Maybe they didn’t know; maybe they didn’t want to know. Nobody said a word. Never even came up.

   Don’t forget that Christie called Cuomo (Dec 2013) complaining that Patrick Foye wasn’t helping with the Bridge scandal cover-up.  

   No wonder Cuomo disbanded his ethics commission.

   Liberals have no power to take down these two dirt bags but their dirty dealings might.

2. 

   Marie2 on April 29, 2014 at 6:55 pm

   Christie hasn’t yet figured out that his schtick doesn’t work anymore:
   Chris Christie’s latest excuse for Sandy delays is pure chutzpah: Editorial:

   Gov. Chris Christie has given a number of shifting excuses for the delays in distributing Hurricane Sandy aid. But the latest one has a special gall:

   After months spent blaming the federal government, Christie now says the process was also slowed because he was so busy helping the poor.

   “I made the decision early on that getting money to the people who need it the most was more important than getting it out as fast as possible,” he said last week.

   Too bad for Christie that this whopper was easy enough to check out.

3. 

   Marie2 on April 30, 2014 at 7:01 pm

   This bullyboy sure gets blindsided a lot.  

   The Republican governor said at a news conference on Tuesday that he was blindsided by April tax collections, which came in at least $600 million below his estimates.

   The April surprise widened the overall shortfall in the governor’s budget to at least $807 million — a whopping sum that Christie says will force difficult cuts to the budget in the next 60 days and could even threaten a couple of important payments into the pension fund for public workers.

   Then like a pol with really big cajones, he went on the blame it on the Feds.

   “What we’re being told initially is that this is the effect of the change in the law at the end of 2012 by the Obama administration and the Congress to increase tax rates on upper-level individuals,” Christie said.

   An excuse more blatantly false than the non-existent traffic study that closed the GW Bridge access lanes. Christie can’t blame feds for $800M budget gap, Pascrell says

   U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-9th Dist.) said today he is “sick and tired of Governor Christie blaming all of his problems on the federal government” when something goes awry in the Garden State.

   “Yesterday it was Sandy aid, and today it is his budget shortfall,” Pascrell said in a statement.

   Christie’s fantasy budget has caught up with him — but not soon enough to deprive him of a landslide re-election win.  

4. 

   Marie2 on May 1, 2014 at 4:15 pm

   It’s been a while since there was much to say about Phillip Kwon who seemed worth noting from the early days of this scandal.  WSJournal now reporting Grand Jury Investigating George Washington Bridge Scandal Subpoenas Phillip Kwon, Ally of Gov. Chris Christie.

   Recall that:

   The Wall Street Journal reported in February that Mr. Kwon sat in on preparations by the agency’s former deputy executive director Bill Baroni, to testify before New Jersey lawmakers about the lane closures last November. He also participated on a conference call to discuss Mr. Baroni’s testimony once he was selected to speak, according to the internal investigation.

   Mr. Baroni said then that the lane closures–carried out over a week in September without any notice to Fort Lee officials–were part of a traffic study. Mr. Kwon attended Mr. Baroni’s testimony in Trenton. He later discussed it with Charles McKenna, then Mr. Christie’s chief counsel, according to the internal investigation.

   • 

     Marie2 on May 1, 2014 at 4:38 pm

     For anyone following and interested:

     Bridge Scandal Investigation Raises Attorney-Client Privilege Questions.

     With news that a federal grand jury has issued a subpoena to Port Authority of New York and New Jersey attorney, Phillip Kwon, the issue of attorney-client privilege may move to the center of in the George Washington Bridge investigation.

     Confidentiality of attorney-client communication is a basic assumption of the legal profession, but for public officials and government attorneys under investigation, it can be far less robust than some expect, legal experts said.

     The shaky ground of the attorney-client privilege for government lawyers is a legacy of the investigations of politicians in hot water — from President Bill Clinton to governors in Illinois and Connecticut.

     Since Clinton-era court decisions that found that government lawyers could be compelled to reveal information to grand jury investigations, prosecutors have increasingly trained their earliest inquiries on the lawyers close to politicians under investigation, defense attorneys and legal scholars said.

     Might have to reconsider my disdain for Ken Starr & Co.

     Among the cases that have involved prosecutors subpoenaing government lawyers are some of the most high-profile government misbehavior scandals in recent decades.

     Specifically, Clinton, Gov George Ryan of Illinois, and apparently Gov Bob McDonnell of VA.  How sweet it would be if the GOP and rightwing zealotry of the 1990’s assists in the takedown of Christie.

5. 

   Marie2 on May 2, 2014 at 6:58 pm

   NJ dot com reporting Samson refuses to provide any more records to bridge scandal committee

   Michael Chertoff and Angelo Genova, Samson’s attorneys said that

   they will not provide any additional documents to the legislative committee investigating the George Washington Bridge scandal, accusing the panel of bias and violating its own rules of confidentiality.
   …
   Today was the deadline the committee had set for Samson to comply with the Legislature’s subpoena.

   Whether or not Samson previously intended to comply with the subpoena, he’s using the US Attorney’s subpoena of the panel’s records as grounds for not doing so.  Will likely prevail if the legislature sues for his records.  

6. 

   Marie2 on May 17, 2014 at 5:24 pm

   SHAWN BOBURG and STEPHANIE AKIN reporting: GWB investigation: Port Authority executive director Foye testified before grand jury

   …
   Foye is among up to a half-dozen current Port Authority officials who have been summoned by federal prosecutors from the office of New Jersey’s U.S. Attorney, Paul Fishman, suggesting that the pace of the investigation has quickened in recent weeks.

   One of the employees called to testify is Arielle Schwarz, who was a special assistant to David Wildstein, the former Port Authority executive and onetime ally of Governor Christie who oversaw the lane closures, two sources said. Phillip Kwon, the agency’s first deputy general counsel, has also been subpoenaed, although it is unclear if he has testified.
   …