If I understand this correctly, Governor Chris Christie canceled his only scheduled appearance today, which was supposed to be held with victims of Superstorm Sandy, and then emailed a statement to the press denying that he’s a big fat liar.
“I am outraged and deeply saddened to learn that not only was I misled by a member of my staff, but this completely inappropriate and unsanctioned conduct was made without my knowledge,” Mr. Christie said.
“This type of behavior is unacceptable and I will not tolerate it, because the people of New Jersey deserve better,” he added. “This behavior is not representative of me or my administration in any way, and people will be held responsible for their actions.”
I’m sorry, but that bullshit isn’t even near good enough. In order for Christie not to be a big fat liar, it would require a lot more than “a member” of his staff to have been misleading him. It would require that Mr. Bill Baroni and Mr. David Wildstein, the Port Authority’s executive deputy director and director of interstate capital projects, respectively, both resigned without ever informing Christie that they were acting on the orders of his deputy chief of staff. It would require that Christie’s own campaign manager (and now state GOP chairman), Bill Stepien, never clued him in. It would require that Christie’s spokesman, Michael Drewniak never told him that his own staff had ordered the closings.
“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” Bridget Anne Kelly, one of three deputies on Christie’s senior staff, wrote to David Wildstein, a top Christie executive at the Port Authority, on Aug. 13, about three weeks before the closures. Wildstein, the official who ordered the closures and who resigned last month amid the escalating scandal, wrote back: “Got it.”
Other top Christie associates mentioned in or copied on the email chain — all after the top New York appointee at the authority ordered the lanes reopened — include David Samson, the chairman of the agency; Bill Stepien, Christie’s re-election campaign manager and the newly appointed state GOP chairman; and Michael Drewniak, Christie’s spokesman.
Of course, I don’t know what Christie can really say. He’s caught red-handed. He ought to resign.
