I've been watching for Dawn Zimmer's reply to the Christie camp's counterattack to her charges yesterday - substantiated by documentation - that Sandy relief funds for Hoboken are being withheld by the Christie administration until their quid pro quo of acceptance of a crony development deal in Hoboken is approved by her city government. Let's just say I wasn't disappointed.
Here's the interview she did this morning with Candy Crowley on CNN's State of the Union show.
Sorry that my embed skills are so lame. Please click on the link and watch the mayor defend herself quite ably, then jump the fold for a brief analysis.
Note: Thanks for getting this rec listed, folks. The credit, of course, belongs to this brave lady whose story I'm just relaying.
First, it should be noted that Zimmer is standing very firm, repeating several times that she's willing to testify under oath that this corrupt action was initiated against her city by the Christie admin, and that she's confident that the Lt Governor (who carried the strong-arm message to her directly from Christie himself) will corroborate her story if required to testify under oath. Her presentation of this stance on this show (with Crowley acting the Devil's Advocate - the Devil being Christie) is very strong and convincing.
Also, in response to Crowley's question regarding Christie's claim that $70 million has been allocated to Hoboken out of a $300 million pot that the whole state has available, Zimmer laughs and calls bullshit: the $70 million is the amount of flood insurance that Hoboken businesses have paid for themselves and is totally unrelated to the FEMA monies she's has been referring to all along.
Please watch the segment and offer your thoughts in the comments below. I think Christie has a formidable opponent in Zimmer (someone who isn't a rabid partisan but who appears to be looking out for her constituents first and foremost - thus her unwillingness to come out with this allegation until she had some certainty, after the Bridgegate allegations gained traction, that she'd be believed and not put even more firmly under Christie's boot).
It will be interesting to watch the Christie camp try to deflect this very adroit counterpunch to the barrage they leveled at her yesterday.
UPDATE: There's some discussion in the comments below about whether Dawn Zimmer has released documentation related to the controversy at hand. Some are saying her credibility is at stake because, even after the Christie crew had put the muscle to her and her city to approve the Rockefeller project in Hoboken's North End, she still made approving tweets about Christie. The comments suggest that unless she offers more documentation than her diary entries, her commentary about this scandal is suspect. I was remiss in my link at the top of this diary that takes you to the MSNBC Kornacki piece where these charges are made: I linked only the second part of the piece where Kornacki interviews Zimmer and left out the first half where he lays out the back story (very thoroughly and systematically) including the documentation. I've corrected that mistake above and invite anyone who hasn't watched the whole thing to especially watch the back story which is the second link in the diary's text, above ("substantiated by documentation").
Also, I've provided a link to the FEMA fund that's being used by Christie as a cudgel to force Hoboken to let his cronies have their way in that city.