The New Jersey General Assembly convened a special session on Thursday to unanimously approve a resolution creating a "Select Committee on Investigations" charged with investigating concerns about the abuse of power at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and any attempts to conceal that abuse.
The resolution (AR-10) also grants the committee broad authority to investigate all aspects of the finances, operations, and management at the Port Authority including, but not limited to, the reassignment of access lanes in Fort Lee to the George Washington Bridge.
The measure, sponsored by Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, Majority Leader Louis Greenwald and Assemblyman John Wisniewski, was approved by a vote of 75-0.
Come out with me into the tall grass if you would like to discuss why or why not this is a genuinely Watergate-like, that is, Nixonesque, existential threat to Chris Christie's political aspirations.
The aforesaid Democratic Assembly Member, John Wisniewski, will lead a full throated charge into the large puddle of terrible awful mess in which Governor Chris Christie is standing but for which he doesn't have the shoes. John Wisniewki, as chairman of the Assembly Transportation, Public Works, and Independent Authorities Committee, apparently had this hot coal fall into his lap, but he isn't flinching. At the press conference where the Democrats who control the New Jersey Assembly announced the Super Committee, New Jersey Assembly Speaker-elect Vincent Prieto promised all the tools and resources to leave no stone unturned to find out what happened here and guard that it won't happen again and something something abuse of power. Wow. They didn't make him Speaker for nothing.
In taking the mantle of leadership for the now expanded investigation, Chairman John Wisniewski, said that the creation of a committee beyond Transportation, etc., with more robust investigatory power, became necessary to completing even the original investigation. The transportation committee's jurisdiction was limited to the NJNY Port Authority, but the trail led “by following emails, to the Governor's office”. Chairman Wisniewski made clear, with top leadership at his sides, that the purpose of creating the "Select Committee on Investigation" is to better fund and staff the inquiry of what the hell was going on in Christieland with that Fort Lee GWB lane closure thing.
NBC reported that Assemblyman Wisniewski minced no words about how serious this could be:
The chairman of a New Jersey legislative panel investigating the George Washington Bridge lane closures said Gov. Chris Christie's top aides had engaged in a "cover-up" and the governor could be impeached if it is determined he was aware of efforts to use the bridge for political purposes.
"Using the George Washington Bridge, a public resource, to exact a political vendetta, is a crime," New Jersey Assemblyman John Wisniewski, who is spearheading the bridge probe, told NBC News on Saturday. "Having people use their official position to have a political game is a crime. So if those tie back to the governor in any way, it clearly becomes an impeachable offense."
snip
If you know anything about New Jersey statehouse politics, this is a governor -- all of our governors quite frankly -- are governors who really tightly manage that operation," he said. "There are no freelancers or independent operations there. And so it strains credibility to believe that the governor knew nothing.
H/t to Christian Dem in NC for the
well received report of Assemblyman Wisniewski's appearance on Face the Nation last Sunday, where he likewise minced no words.
Another indication that this investigation will be for real and properly funded is the Special Committee's appointment of legal counsel to conduct the investigation, Chicago and Illinois politics veteran from the venerated gubernatorial prosecution factory that is the Chicago U.S. Attorney's Office, Reid Schar.
Mr. Schar is a partner at the law firm of Jenner & Block LLP and co-chairs the firm's White Collar Defense and Investigations Practice.
While at the U.S. Attorney's office for the Northern District of Illinois, Mr. Schar was the lead investigator and prosecutor in both corruption trials of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Since joining Jenner & Block in July 2012, he has led a number of global internal and government investigations on behalf of a variety of clients, including Fortune 500 companies and government organizations. Clients regularly turn to Mr. Schar for counsel and advice on issues of importance.
Mr. Schar is a big fish in the world of top dollar white collar crime because he made his bones on ever so strange Rod Blagojevich. He won't be cheap, nor will this inquiry, but the NJ Assembly appears ready to pay for it.
More interesting, Mr. Schar's investigations and prosecutions of the former Illinois Governor, were largely based upon wiretaps. New Jersey Assembly Resolution 10 gives Mr. Schar's investigation authority to use to use any reasonable method to obtain evidence and power to apply to any local, state or federal authority for any necessary assistance. I don't know if the same sort of thing would be within the power of the Select Committee on Investigation. Still, I would watch out, Governor Christie, about what you and others say on the phone, or in your offices or anywhere, really, from now on. All Mr. Schar needs is probable cause of a crime, and the Special Prosecutor (think Ken Starr, here) can be all over the Governor and his people like a flock of ducks on June bugs. A whiff of RICO may be all Mr. Schar needs. Mr. Schar also has considerable experience with insiders turning on Mr. Big.
The scope of the expanded special investigation allowed by the New Jersey Assembly Resolution remains limited, nevertheless. It only extends to matters associated with the lane closures on the GWB. Not included, if they occurred is authority to investigate other vindictive acts by the Governor's staff against other targets or via different means. Also excluded are any political payoffs these same Governor's Office clowns seem likely to have been making, as I wrote about here.
Much worse could be yet to come for Christie in Bridgegate. It probably is. What happened at the New Jersey Governor's office raises a really delicious question: What is it about how Christie runs the Governor's Office that would make a deputy chief of staff think that she had been given the superpower to clog roads used by millions of innocent commuters and transports just because it seemed like a good piece of political ratfucking at the time. How's that happen, Gov? Huh?
AFTERWORD
If it is possible to apologize in advance in an afterword, I do so to anyone who thinks me unqualified to shoot off my mouth about New Jersey state politics. Guilty. I don't live there, never have, never will. I don't believe I ever slept there over night. I've passed through by car, air, bus and rail. I don't know anyone who does live there. I like Springsteen, but not a manlove case like with Christie. I'm not qualified.
But I am a lawyer with an interest in politics and I have investigated and prosecuted white collar crime and I lived and worked in a statehouse culture for nearly ten years and have a sense of the generalities of how Governors and their staffs do things. And the Christie saga is so entertaining. If it turned out that Christie were actually innocent like he claims to be, history would eventually view his story as the kind of pathos laden tragedy that eventually receives tribute in art, like, novels, films, plays, or, dare I dream it, Christie, the Musical. But Christie's story, and the political end of him for now, will more probably be a much simpler, merely sad, not tragic tale, expressing flaws in Christie's character evident to any careful observer. And, I do live in Illinois, where our local politics may give some perspective on what some in New Jersey endure from their officials. So, when I see stuff nobody else is writing about it, sometimes I will.