Steve Kornacki: "So that brings us now to seven characters. Seven characters at
least for now who are most crucial to what comes next in this story."
Steve Kornacki used to work as a reporter for a political website in New Jersey. His employer was David Wildstein, one of the key players in the current New Jersey saga that has become known as Bridgegate. As a guest host on
The Rachel Maddow Show on December 18, Kornacki provided a long, detailed explanation about this connection. You can read a
transcript here.
Kornacki's previous employment as a political journalist in New Jersey gives him a unique perspective and insights about the players in the current New Jersey saga that has become known as Bridgegate. He shared many of those insights this morning on his show Up with Steve Kornacki.
I found it interesting particularly because I had called my aunt who lives in New Jersey earlier this week after the Christie press conference to ask her about what she thought about the scandal. My aunt is a registered Democrat who did vote for Christie, but does not suffer fools. I was a bit stunned when she told me that she believed Christie when he said that the first time he knew about his political appointees and staff being involved in the lane closures was on Wednesday morning when those emails were first released.
From what I had watched on television and read up until this morning, I found it very difficult to believe it possible that Christie knew nothing until Wednesday morning. But then I watched Steve Kornacki's rundown of all the major players in the lane closures, and for the first time I saw how it could be possible. I have posted the video and transcribed the segment below the orange squiggly so you can watch or read it too.
Kornacki's description of four of the players paints the picture of an inner circle within Christie's inner circle. First, Kornacki talks about Bridget Kelly and speaks very highly of her. He said that she was one of his favorite people to talk to when he was covering politics in New Jersey ...
One of the reasons was because she defied the stereotype of a scheming, Jersey political operative, and it wasn’t just me who thought this. I heard from a New Jersey Democrat whom I’ve known for a while, yesterday who remembered Bridget Kelly as quote issue driven, eager and energetic. She struck me as a moderate Republican in it for all the right reasons. If you don’t know Bridge Kelly, and you don’t know the New Jersey political world it might be easy to swallow what Christie said this week; that Kelly had deceived and lied to him and kept him totally in the dark on all of this until this week. But if you know Bridget Kelly, well that’s not quite as easy to swallow. She’s relatively new to Christie’s orbit. She’s had a well earned reputation for integrity. It’s clear she’s involved in this but it’s also hard to believe she concocted this. And it’s harder still to believe that she had the authority to order it.
Next Kornacki talked about his former boss David Wildstein and how he believed that Christie and Wildstein probably did not know each other in high school, even though they attended the same school at the same time.
Wildstein is not a long-time Christie protector and he is apparently looking for immunity. That’s important to keep in mind. I can also tell you this. I worked for him for three years from 2002 to 2005. Of all the people involved in this, I think he’s the sharpest. I think he’s the savviest and I think that he is by far the most strategic thinker. He doesn’t do anything without thinking ahead; without considering the possible outcomes and planning for contingencies. I think that’s worth keeping in mind as this story plays out. And maybe you’re asking if Wildstein and Christie weren’t that close; if Wildstein sold his media operation to a family that despises Chris Christie, why would Christie ever send him to the Port Authority in the first place?
When Kornacki moves on to talking about Bill Baroni, we learn that it was Baroni who brought Wildstein into Christie's orbit.
In 2007 he went on to get elected to the State Senate and in 2009 he did something politically courageous. He cast the sole Republican vote in the New Jersey State Senate for gay marriage. It didn’t pass back then, but it exposed Baroni to a ton of heat from the right in his own party. So when Christie came to power in 2010 he offered Baroni the Port Authority gig which comes with a great pay check and some enviable perks by the way. And Baroni took it and he told Christie that he wanted to bring somebody with him. He wanted to bring his friend David Wildstein who had also been in politics before he started that website that I worked on for him.
When Kornacki gets to Bill Stepien, some pieces start to fall into place.
Until this week, Bill Stepien was one of Christie’s closest, most trusted and most talented political lieutenants.
(snip)
Stepien pops up in those emails that came out Wednesday morning too. In one of them he ridicules the mayor of Fort Lee as an idiot. Now there was nothing in those emails that showed he had any advance knowledge or any role in planning the traffic jam, but Christie threw him overboard too, and here’s why.
Video of Chris Christie at Thursday 9 Jan 2014 Press Conference: Reading that; it made me lose my confidence in Bill’s judgment and you cannot have someone at the top of your political operation who you do not have confidence in.
Let's pause for a moment and ponder this. Christie fired Stepien for the tone of an email in which Stepien called the Mayor of Fort Lee
an idiot in writing? I didn't have to watch
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Thursday night to remember the clip of Chris Christie calling a law student
an idiot, but it helped that Stewart put together this segment for us:
Watch at about 3:00 where Christie says "This is not the tone that I've set over the last four years in this building. It's not the environment I've worked so hard to achieve." And then continue watching as Stewart plays clips of Christie calling people names. It does stretch credibility to believe that this was the main reason Christie chose to sever ties Stepien.
Let's continue with what Kornacki had to say about Stepien.
Now, talk to anyone in New Jersey politics privately, though. They’ll tell you there’s still an awful lot of suspicion around Stepien because he is connected to these other players. His first big break in politics came in 2003. That’s when he ran Bill Baroni’s campaign for the state assembly. That’s a campaign I remember covering all those years ago. Baroni was the only non-incumbent Republican who ran a legislative race in New Jersey that year. It was a really good year for Democrats, but Baroni won. And so that election made him a rising star. It also made Stepien who managed his campaign a rising star in Republican politics. So from there, Stepien went on to work for George W. Bush’s reelection campaign in 2004, for John McCain and for Rudy Giuliani in 2008 and then he got his real big break. He ran Christie’s successful campaign for governor in 2009. It’s the first time in 12 years that a Republican had won a governor’s race in New Jersey.
And Stepien is also a way to understand, or at least to start to understand, Bridget Kelly’s role in all of this because it was during that 2009 race that she, who was then a relatively unknown aide to a relatively unknown politician in Bergen County, provided key help to the Christie campaign and to Stepien in particular in Bergen County. So they grew close from that experience and when they won that election, Stepien brought her with him to Trenton to join the new administration. And Stepien’s job in the first few years of that new Christie administration was the same job that Kelly had until this week.
He was Christie’s local enforcer except unlike Kelly, Stepien earned a reputation in that role for aggression; for playing rough; for diving into seemingly ultra-local, seemingly ultra-petty local matters. And when he left that job to run Christie’s reelection campaign last year, Bridget Kelly took it over for him. Bill Stepien’s character has now been challenged by Chris Christie on national television. His career trajectory (he was going to play a leading role in the 2016 presidential campaign; he was maybe going to work in the White House); that career trajectory has now been derailed. Is he embittered by that? Will he be subpoenaed? Will his records? Is he sitting on anything that can make this scandal bigger? And does he want to get anything out?
Wow! Is Stepien the guy we should be looking to in order to find answers to all the nagging questions about Bridgegate. Is Stepien the one who gave Kelly the order to send the email saying "time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee"? Stepien was close to Baroni who brought in Wildstein. Is it possible that Stepien was the ring leader and the others were following his instructions? He's the one with the reputation for diving into local matters. What beef could he have had with local politicians in Fort Lee? Is it possible that he was carrying out a personal vendetta that didn't involve Chris Christie and Christie was truly surprised on Wednesday morning to find out what had been going on behind his back orchestrated by Stepien?
Even so, I find it difficult to believe that Christie knew absolutely nothing until Wednesday morning when he was supposedly blindsided. What do you think? Did Stepien think of himself as a king maker, a behind the scenes puppet master who didn't need to consult Governor Christie to create a traffic jam in Fort Lee? Or did he do it with Christie's knowledge and consent and Christie only fired him because he got caught?
Who’s who in the Chris Christie scandal
Chris Christie is the biggest star of the George Washington Bridge story, but right now it involves 5 other key players. Steve Kornacki introduces the major people involved.
… to what is the biggest story of the week. It is the biggest story; it is the lowest moment, and a potentially catastrophic moment, in the political career of Chris Christie. We don’t know yet if the revelations that one of his top staffers was involved in a scheme to shut down access lanes to the George Washington Bridge and to jam up traffic in the New Jersey town of Fort Lee will end up sinking Christie’s presidential ambitions, and possibly even more than that. We don’t know that and we don’t know a lot of other things because for every question that was answered this week, ten more new ones were seemingly raised. Christie obviously is at the center this story, but right now it involves other key players; at least five other key players who’s words and actions, or who’s lack of words and who’s lack of action, in the coming days and weeks will determine the scope, if the scope of this story expands. And if the words that Christie spoke during the marathon press conference Thursday will come back to destroy him.
Video of Chris Christie at Thursday 9 Jan 2014 Press Conference: I had no knowledge or involvement in this issue, in its planning or execution and I am stunned by the abject stupidity that was shown here.
Now if you’ve been watching this story play out on this network this week, then you know that I’m a little bit more than just a curious onlooker here. I got my start covering New Jersey politics. I lived and breathed it for three years of my life, and I’ve never completely separated myself from it either. Someone once told me that politics in New Jersey is like a soap opera. There’s always all sorts of drama and intrigue and it never really reaches a peak or comes to an end. It just keeps going; one surprise after another, year after year, and you can’t help but keep watching and trying to guess what’s going to happen next. Well, the person who told me that was one of those key players in this story. He was my boss, he was my editor; he was the owner of a nonpartisan political news site where I got my start back in 2002. And now he’s smack in the middle of this scandal. He’s played a very important part in my career so it makes all of this a little bit awkward for me but at the same time, because I know him, because I know so many of the other people who are a part of this story, it also puts me in a position to give you some context of who all these key players are, how they all fit together, and what it all might mean for where this drama is going to go next. So I’m going to do my best right now, this morning to explain them to you. Who they are; what I know about them.
Bridget Kelly
I’m going to start with the first one of those key players, Bridget Kelly. The world learned her name on Wednesday morning when emails leaked out in which she wrote the now notorious line, Time for some traffic problems for Fort Lee. By late morning Thursday, this is what Chris Christie was saying about Bridget Kelly.
Video of Chris Christie at Thursday 9 Jan 2014 Press Conference: This morning I’ve terminated the employment of Bridget Kelly effective immediately. I’ve terminated her employment because she lied to me.
Now until Thursday, Bridget Kelly was one Chris Christie’s deputy chiefs of staff. She was the Deputy Chief of Staff for the Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs. That was her official title. It is the most political job in the governor’s office. Her job was to be Christie’s point person in dealing with mayors and municipal counsel members; county officials across the state. And Christie with the words that he spoke on Thursday all but declared Kelly the ring leader in the plan to clog up traffic in Fort Lee because of a vendetta against the town’s Democratic mayor.
Now here’s the thing. I know Bridget Kelly. She was the chief of staff to a low-key, moderate Republican state assemblyman from Bergen County; it’s the suburbs of North Jersey. She was in that position when I was covering the state. That assemblyman she worked for? That was one of my favorite people to cover. She was one of my favorite people to talk to. One of the reasons was because she defied the stereotype of a scheming, Jersey political operative, and it wasn’t just me who thought this. I heard from a New Jersey Democrat whom I’ve known for a while, yesterday who remembered Bridget Kelly as quote issue driven, eager and energetic. She struck me as a moderate Republican in it for all the right reasons. If you don’t know Bridge Kelly, and you don’t know the New Jersey political world it might be easy to swallow what Christie said this week; that Kelly had deceived and lied to him and kept him totally in the dark on all of this until this week. But if you know Bridget Kelly, well that’s not quite as easy to swallow. She’s relatively new to Christie’s orbit. She’s had a well earned reputation for integrity. It’s clear she’s involved in this but it’s also hard to believe she concocted this. And it’s harder still to believe that she had the authority to order it. The state legislative committee that’s looking into this next week has not technically subpoenaed her, but has asked her to testify. Will she show up? Will she talk? Those are the questions in the immediate future for Bridget Kelly.
David Wildstein
Next up on our list we have David Wildstein. Now this is the guy who used to be my boss. He gave me my start in journalism. He was one of Christie’s appointees to the Port Authority. He’s one of those people whose records were subpoenaed by the State Assembly; the same records that contained all those explosive revelations this week. Now David Wildstein resigned from the Port Authority a month ago, and if you’ve heard or read about him at all since then, you’ve probably heard or read him described as Christie’s long-time friend; Christie’s high school buddy. Well, here’s what Christie had to say about that on Thursday.
Video of Chris Christie at Thursday 9 Jan 2014 Press Conference: David and I were not friends in high school. We were not even acquaintances in high school. [cut in tape] We didn’t travel the same circles in high school. You know, I was the class president, an athlete. I don’t know what David was doing during that period of time.
And here’s what I can say about that. I can actually pretty much vouch for that; pretty much vouch for what Chris Christie is saying there because no one who knew Christie and Wildstein in their high school days describes them as friends from back then. And I can tell you that when I worked with Wildstein on our Jersey political news site there was never any reason for me to suspect that he had any kind of relationship with Chris Christie. We were tough on Chris Christie plenty of times and more to the point there’s this. A few years after I left that site for a job in Washington D.C., David Wildstein sold it and he didn’t just sell it to anyone. He sold it to someone named Jared Kushner, who is the young, rich son of someone named Charles Kushner. Charles Kushner was a New Jersey real estate magnate and top Democratic donor who Christie prosecuted and put in jail when he was U.S. Attorney. By the way, do you know what Christie prosecuted Kushner for? It was the ultimate, only in Jersey scandal. Charles Kushner was having a business dispute with his brother-in-law so he hired two prostitutes. He had one of them seduce his brother-in-law. Then he had a video tape of the encounter sent to the brother-in-law’s wife. I swear this is completely true. I am not making it up. Charles Kushner did two years in jail for that and it was the Kushner family that was totally and completely humiliated by Chris Christie. It was that family that David Wildstein sold his New Jersey website to.
So the idea that Wildstein and Christie have this tight, close partnership that dates back decades; I don’t buy it. This is also by the way why I think the most significant development this week might have come later on Thursday after Christie’s press conference. Wildstein appeared before a state assembly which had subpoenaed him. He took the fifth; you probably know about that by now, but at the very end of the hearing his lawyer also dangled this in front of the committee
Video of Thursday 9 Jan 2014 State Assembly Hearing:
Wildstein’s lawyer, Alan Zegas: If they attorneys general for New Jersey, New York and the United States were all to agree to cloth Mr. Wildstein with immunity, I think that you’d find yourselves in a far different position with respect to information he can provide.
New Jersey State Assemblyman John Wisniewski: That’s your job. We just want answers to our questions.
Alan Zegas: Understood. I’m just suggesting a way you can get them.
So to be clear, Wildstein is not a long-time Christie protector and he is apparently looking for immunity. That’s important to keep in mind. I can also tell you this. I worked for him for three years from 2002 to 2005. Of all the people involved in this, I think he’s the sharpest. I think he’s the savviest and I think that he is by far the most strategic thinker. He doesn’t do anything without thinking ahead; without considering the possible outcomes and planning for contingencies. I think that’s worth keeping in mind as this story plays out. And maybe you’re asking if Wildstein and Christie weren’t that close; if Wildstein sold his media operation to a family that despises Chris Christie, why would Christie ever send him to the Port Authority in the first place? Well, that’s a good question and the answer has to do with this man.
Bill Baroni
This is Bill Baroni. He is the other Christie appointee to the Port Authority who also resigned last month. He’s the one who told a state assembly committee (this is when he was not under oath by the way); he told that committee that the lanes had been closed because of a traffic study. A traffic study that has never been produced and that multiple Port Authority officials have since said had never existed. His emails and texts along with Wildsteins were also subpoenaed and were part of that release this week.
Now, who is Baroni? Well to give you some background on him. He was a rising star in New Jersey politics a few years ago. He’s an affable lawyer who made a lot of friends in the state Republican Party who got elected to the State Assembly in 2003 when he was 31 years old. I actually remember covering that campaign. In 2007 he went on to get elected to the State Senate and in 2009 he did something politically courageous. He cast the sole Republican vote in the New Jersey State Senate for gay marriage. It didn’t pass back then, but it exposed Baroni to a ton of heat from the right in his own party. So when Christie came to power in 2010 he offered Baroni the Port Authority gig which comes with a great pay check and some enviable perks by the way. And Baroni took it and he told Christie that he wanted to bring somebody with him. He wanted to bring his friend David Wildstein who had also been in politics before he started that website that I worked on for him. So that’s why Wildstein was at the Port Authority. It was because of Baroni. The question now is whether Baroni is going to hear again from that Assembly Committee. If this time they’re going to demand that he come back and testify under oath about that supposed traffic study that he talked about at the end of November. Will they call him? Will he take the fifth? Will his story change? Those are the major questions about him right now.
Bill Stepien
Now we go to the fourth name; the fourth key person in all this. This is Bill Stepien. Until this week, Bill Stepien was one of Christie’s closest, most trusted and most talented political lieutenants. He had managed Christie’s campaign in 2009 and his reelection campaign in 2013. He was slated to become the State Republican Party Chairman and to serve as an advisor to the Republican Governors Association. That is the group that Christie is now taking over; the national group. Bill Stepien was also set to play a major role in the 2016 presidential campaign that everyone has been assuming Christie will run. But, Stepien pops up in those emails that came out Wednesday morning too. In one of them he ridicules the mayor of Fort Lee as an idiot. Now there was nothing in those emails that showed he had any advance knowledge or any role in planning the traffic jam, but Christie threw him overboard too, and here’s why.
Video of Chris Christie at Thursday 9 Jan 2014 Press Conference: Reading that; it made me lose my confidence in Bill’s judgment and you cannot have someone at the top of your political operation who you do not have confidence in.
Now, talk to anyone in New Jersey politics privately, though. They’ll tell you there’s still an awful lot of suspicion around Stepien because he is connected to these other players. His first big break in politics came in 2003. That’s when he ran Bill Baroni’s campaign for the state assembly. That’s a campaign I remember covering all those years ago. Baroni was the only non-incumbent Republican who ran a legislative race in New Jersey that year. It was a really good year for Democrats, but Baroni won. And so that election made him a rising star. It also made Stepien who managed his campaign a rising star in Republican politics. So from there, Stepien went on to work for George W. Bush’s reelection campaign in 2004, for John McCain and for Rudy Giuliani in 2008 and then he got his real big break. He ran Christie’s successful campaign for governor in 2009. It’s the first time in 12 years that a Republican had won a governor’s race in New Jersey.
And Stepien is also a way to understand, or at least to start to understand, Bridget Kelly’s role in all of this because it was during that 2009 race that she, who was then a relatively unknown aide to a relatively unknown politician in Bergen County, provided key help to the Christie campaign and to Stepien in particular in Bergen County. So they grew close from that experience and when they won that election, Stepien brought her with him to Trenton to join the new administration. And Stepien’s job in the first few years of that new Christie administration was the same job that Kelly had until this week.
He was Christie’s local enforcer except unlike Kelly, Stepien earned a reputation in that role for aggression; for playing rough; for diving into seemingly ultra-local, seemingly ultra-petty local matters. And when he left that job to run Christie’s reelection campaign last year, Bridget Kelly took it over for him. Bill Stepien’s character has now been challenged by Chris Christie on national television. His career trajectory (he was going to play a leading role in the 2016 presidential campaign; he was maybe going to work in the White House); that career trajectory has now been derailed. Is he embittered by that? Will he be subpoenaed? Will his records? Is he sitting on anything that can make this scandal bigger? And does he want to get anything out?
Kevin O’Dowd
There’s also one more name to include in our wheel here. Kevin O’Dowd. He’s Christie’s current chief of staff. He has been the chief of staff as the bridge story’s played out. And on Thursday Christie talked about how he leaned on Kevin O’Dowd as the story began gain steam.
Video of Chris Christie at Thursday 9 Jan 2014 Press Conference: I put to all of them one simple challenge. If there is any information that you know about the decision to close those; these lanes in Fort Lee, you have one hour to tell either my chief of staff Kevin O’Dowd or my chief counsel Charlie McKenna.
But did O’Dowd know anything himself? Did Chris Christie interrogate him at all? O’Dowd is Christie’s nominee to be the state’s next attorney general. Under a cloud like this, though, should Christie’s chief of staff be placed in such a place of power as the chief law enforcement officer of the state of New Jersey? He was supposed to sail through the state senate. That was before all this. But now Democrats are saying wait a minute. The State Senate Judiciary Committee was supposed to begin its confirmation hearings next Tuesday. Now they’ve been postponed. His fate is up in the air.
David Samson and Regina Egea
And that was the full wheel of key players in this; at least it was until the latest trove of emails and text messages was dumped late yesterday afternoon. And pouring over them reveals two additional key names to talk about here. One belongs to David Samson. He’s something of a father figure, maybe a grandfather figure to the New Jersey Republican Party. He’s a former state attorney general. He’s in his seventies. He’s known and respected by a couple of generations of Garden State Republicans. Actually his respect has gone across party lines in the past. And he was Christie’s choice to serve as the Chairman of the Port Authority. And what we are now learning from the new emails was that he aggressively pushed back against a withering critique of the lane closures from the New York officials at the Port Authority as they were playing out.
The other new name in the mix after yesterday is Regina Egea. She’s Christie’s current pick to replace Kevin O’Dowd as his chief of staff. But her job before this has been the director of what’s called Christie’s Authorities Unit. That means she’s part of Christie’s office. She’s part of the Governor’s office. And in that role, as the head of the Authorities Unit, we now know she was forwarded on September 13th of last year, a copy of that same withering critique of the lane closures that was written by New York officials. So we can now say that someone inside the governor’s office was alerted to the serious concerns about the lane closures four full months ago. And that someone is Chris Christie’s current pick to be his next chief of staff. That’s how close to him she is.
So that brings us now to seven characters. Seven characters at least for now who are most crucial to what comes next in this story. There are connections between and among some of them. There are some very deep, some very personal and some very lasting connections. Others? Other connections are more recent and more superficial. All of these people have legal worries; they have career worries; they have worries about their reputations to tend to right now. They are facing a raft of questions from the press, from the public, from everyone who’s following this story in any way. And there are now mechanisms in place; there are mechanisms in motion that could compel them, even if they don’t want to, to produce more information, more revelations, to add more names to this mix, to produce some of the answers to key questions that now hang out there. The U.S. Attorney for the State of New Jersey is considering whether to launch an investigation. The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee is sniffing around. And then there’s that State Assembly Committee, the Transportation Committee, that’s been looking into this that brought those emails to light this week that forced David Wildstein to appear on Thursday and that expects Bridge Kelly to do the same next week.