Last week, we highlighted the alternate “BridgeGate” scandal theory offered by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. She reported, with circumstantial but seemingly plausible evidence, that the four-day closure of several Fort Lee, NJ access lanes to the George Washington Bridge last September might have had to do with something other than political payback for a lack of endorsement for Christie’s re-election bid by the Democratic Mayor of Fort Lee.
Maddow posited that the timing of the now-infamous “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” email of August 13, 7:34am, as sent by Christie Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Ann Kelly, may have been a direct response to something other than Fort Lee Mayor Mike Sokolich’s refusal to endorse Christie. Instead, Maddow said, the still-unexplained closures might have been meant as retaliation to the state Senate’s Democratic Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, who has been a particular thorn in the Republican Governor’s side for many years. (By way of just one example, see her attempt to pass a bill to limit travel of the NJ Governor following our exclusive release of audio tapes revealing Christie’s super-secret appearance at a secret Koch Brothers gathering in Colorado in 2011.)
In support of the theory, Maddow highlighted a late afternoon press conference given by a very angry Christie on August 12th, the night before Kelly’s early morning email, concerning a NJ Supreme Court nominee being stalled by Senate Democrats led by Weinberg, who happens to represent part of Fort Lee.
For what it’s worth, the Democratic NJ Senate President Assembly leader, as well as several others, have found reason to doubt Maddow’s theory.
But, on Sunday, in another smart example of good investigative broadcast journalism on MSNBC’s UP with Steve Kornacki, the host, a former New Jersey political reporter and, incidentally, former employee of David Wildstein (the Christie appointee at the NY/NJ Port Authority who ordered the actual shutdown at the agency, according to subpoenaed email and text messages) offered yet another plausible alternate explanation for the shutdown.
This one also sounds like yet another plot straight out of HBO’s The Soprano’s, as it relates to, in Kornacki’s words, “something of enormous economic and political significance”…
“What could have motivated a Governor to care so much about the mayor of a medium size New Jersey town — a town that’s one of 566 municipalities in the state — to single that mayor out for this kind of treatment?,” Kornacki teased. “What exactly was at stake with these closures?”
Until now, the presumption has been that the actions of Christie’s office (we don’t yet know for certain whether he, himself, knew about the closures) was political payback for the rejected endorsement. But, as we also noted last week, many other Democratic mayors similarly refused to endorse Christie last year, and both Sokolich and Christie have credibly downplayed any particularly hardball effort to obtain that particular endorsement before the September closures.
So, if not the endorsement, and if not an act of retribution against state Sen. Weinberg, could there be something else?
Yes, as Kornacki details, a billion dollar commercial development on 16 acres of currently-vacant — but incredibly valuable — land, precisely adjacent to Fort Lee’s now-storied GWB access lanes. The development project has been the source of various political machinations for at least four decades, including, as Kornacki explains, as part of an infamously-attempted bribe by members of the mafia back in the 1970s, of the then Mayor of Fort Lee.
With a new deal for development of that land now finally struck, and final approval of financing for it hanging in the balance on the very week the lanes were shut down by Christie’s office last September, Kornacki’s reporting could also make a lot of sense.
As the MSNBC host and former New Jersey political journalist notes, this “billion dollar development” (as it was described by Mayor Sokolich in letters to the Port Authority during his frantic attempts to have the lanes re-opened during the September shutdown) has also been alluded to during this scandal both by Christie himself, when he was making light of the shutdown late last year, and by Wildstein, who included messages about a meeting Christie had with another one of his Port Authority appointees, Bill Sampson, just one week before Kelly called for “traffic problems in Fort Lee”, in documents submitted by Wildstein in response to a subpoena for all documents related to the bridge closure.
Why did Wildstein view discussion about a meeting between Christie and Samson a week before the lanes were ordered closed by Christie’s Deputy Chief of Staff, to be related to the bridge closure? That point remains unexplained at this time, as does the content of the Christie/Sampson meeting.
During his attempts to downplay the shutdown last year at a December 2nd, 2013 press conference, Christie also alluded to conversations with Samson:
“I’ve told Chairman Samson this.” Is that what he discussed with Samson, a former NJ Attorney General, when, as Wildstein’s texts highlight, the Governor met with the Port Authority board member just one week before the lane closures were ordered?
Samson is still at the Port Authority where, as Christie explained in his marathon 2-hour presser last Thursday, he still enjoys the Governor’s confidence. “I’m confident that he had no knowledge of this,” Christie said that day about Samson, “based upon our conversations and his review of this information.” (Christie had also been confident of supposed assurances from other top members of his Administration, like Kelly, that they knew nothing about this affair, until the subpoenaed email and text messages came to light and proved otherwise.)
Here’s Kornacki’s theory about how the 16-acre development near the river’s edge and adjacent to Fort Lee’s GWB access lanes may be at the center of this still mysterious scandal…
After laying the theory out, Kornacki was then joined by New Jersey reporter Brian Murphy — who is also a former employee of one-time Garden State political blogger David Wildstein — to examine the viability of the “billion dollar development” in Fort Lee as having played a central role, somehow, in the bridge lane shutdown.
“If you wanted to try to muscle in, in some way, to get a piece of that, boy, this is one way to do that,” says Murphy. “These are smart gentlemen. It’s just hard for me to believe that people put themselves on the line for something like an endorsement.”
Watch:
Interesting about the dedicated 3 lanes. One “back door” to beat the GWB traffic on I-80/I-95 is to take US Rt 46 to Fort Lee and the local lanes to the GWB. (Go 1 exit south on I-95 if you are coming in on I-80 east.)
No matter what the outcome or the truth may be, this has been a delicious gift of a story that reveals universal behind-the-scenes politics-at-work that are rarely discussed so extensively. That second video is chock-packed with great stuff. (Of course it’s also refreshing to see real journalism in action- competitively, no less- for a change.)
I’m curious about how those email exchanges between the parties- that took place using personal email addresses- wouldn’t somehow be illegal from a government records standpoint. If they weren’t revealed through subpoena, in spite of their direct relationship to government official business, those communications would have remained invisible to the public.
This is an example of journalism at its’ best and I applaud your efforts and skill.
Thank you for allowing me to watch and read how you connect the dots as you investigate this scheme, its’ unraveling and the key players. That it is happening on a very public national stage is just another ‘sad’example of a politican’s arrogance, in this case Gov. Christie.
In the light of your revelations I can see how Christie’s display of feined incredulousness that Ft Lee even had 3 dedicated lanes as a taunt that must have sent chills down the spines of those invested in the success of the development of Area 5.
The Mayor of Ft Lee’s query to Baroni that you highlighted makes me wonder what integral part of this dev/contract is the Gov muscling in for?
It must be pretty important for him to announce
in his remarks ( “we should look at this”) what now sounds like a thinly veiled threat thrown at those so invested.
One theme that emerges through all these revelations is that Christie’s desire for the stroking of his own ego comes at the expense of NJ taxpayers.
NJ Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D), who heads the committee investigating BridgeGate said his committee would look into the issue of whether this “huge real estate development” played a role in the scandal.
I find it hard to believe that Christie knew nothing about the whole thing. That just doesn’t pass the smell test.
I’m looking forward to the discovery of more info regarding the part that it’s obviously a strategy that’s been discussed and ready to fire up as soon as the word is given. Was it a one-size-fits-all-the-reasons-we’d-like-to-fuck-with-Fort-Lee retribution plan? Or was it always associated with a specific thing/person/development they were targeting?
Useful facts, but there is an elephant in the room that no one seems willing to address directly.
Simply put, if this project was worth a $500K bribe 40 years ago, what is it worth today?
And why bother with crude bribes, when the Supreme Court has paved the way for legalized bribery, in the form of anonymous campaign contributions.
All Christie has to do is to publicly question the need for three lanes for one town, then demonstrate what happens when those lanes are shut down. The message is thus delivered to the interested parties, and the cash and favors routinely pour in. And it’s all perfectly legal.
Kind of makes you pine for the good old days of organized crime, bribes, and bag men. How quaint.
County AFL-CIO building trades union endorsements.
It is remarkable that Christie decided to tell what appears to be a stone cold lie to the public – that he did not know about any of this before 8:50AM the day before his marathon press conference. If this was with forethought, it was a long-shot, and the long-shot only seems warranted if the alternative was far worse. Thee probably did not expect the story to go national and viral and be the media object that captures the imagination of the country for a week, but even then I’d guess the calculation was they had less than a 50/50 shot of getting past this, perhaps aided by the hope he could get his chief of staff into the Attorney General position. With Sampson putting himself on the line here, I think the shot was taken across the ball of the developer, not the mayor of Fort Lee of any NJ legislators. When in doubt, follow the money.