New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, more recently known as the groveling and grub-eating Renfield to Donald Trump’s Dracula, is crossing his corrupt little fingers together even harder these days as the trial over Bridgegate gets even more damning. David Wilstein is the prosecution’s star witness, and this is why:
He also said Mr. Christie’s former campaign manager, one of the governor’s closest confidants and now a top adviser to Donald J. Trump, knew about the scheme to close the lanes before it occurred and that the plan was meant as political retribution.
The bridge manager explained to Mr. Wildstein that the lanes were used to ease congestion from traffic flowing though the town of Fort Lee. They were the result of a deal between a long-ago mayor of the town and a former governor of New Jersey.
This was two years before Wildstein and Gov. Christie would use this technique to punish a Fort Lee, New Jersey mayor unwilling to endorse Gov. Christie. But this is Wildstein and his boss, Gov. Christie’s top staff employee at the Port Authority, Bill Baroni—yes, that’s a real name—not Gov. Christie, right?
"Mr. Baroni said, 'Governor I have to talk to you about something,'" Wildstein recalled.
"(He said) there's a tremendous amount of traffic in Fort Lee ... and you'll be pleased to know Mayor (Mark) Sokolich is very frustrated," Wildstein said.
Wildstein said that he and Baroni boasted to the governor about not returning Soklolich's repeated phone calls.
Christie responded that he wasn't surprised Fort Lee's mayor "wouldn't be getting his phone calls returned," Wildstein said.
Hi-larious! Wildstein explained that the plan to use the traffic on the bridge as leverage to get Mayor Sokolich’s endorsement was coupled with an ongoing relationship between the mayor of Fort Lee and the Christie administration. Wildstein was surprised when he received an email from Gov. Christie’s point person telling him to begin the traffic scheme. He assumed it was a little late to use it as pressure—in fact, it was more of a threat of punishment.
But Mr. Wildstein said he was taken aback when Ms. Kelly’s blunt email arrived at 7:34 a.m. on Aug. 13: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”
“I remember thinking that I was a little surprised it was this late that the point of leverage with Mayor Sokolich would be exercised,” he said.
Still, he understood what she meant. “She told me the reason was to send Mayor Sokolich a message,” Mr. Wildstein said. “The indication was that Mayor Sokolich needed to fully understand that life would be more difficult for him in the second Christie term than it had been in the first.”
Of course, everyone involved in this den of thieves is saying everyone else is the main culprit. What does Gov. Christie have to say about this?
Spokesmen for the governor did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Probably too busy shooting the breeze with his new den of thieves, Donald and Rudi.