Who's who of Christie aides convicted of abusing power
As of Friday, four one-time aides of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have been convicted of crimes for abusing the power they were entrusted with.
Here is a little about them.
Bridget Anne Kelly
Role: Former deputy chief of staff for Christie
Hometown: Ramsey, N.J.
On Nov. 4, 2016, Bridget Anne Kelly was found guilty of conspiring to close access lanes to the George Washington Bridge to exact revenge on the mayor of Fort Lee for not endorsing Christie for re-election.
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Once a relatively low-profile staff member in Christie’s office, Kelly was indicted May 1, 2015, for her role in the lane-closure scandal, along with Bill Baroni, the former deputy executive director of the Port Authority.
Kelly is best known for an eight-word email she sent to a Port Authority executive in August 2013: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” David Wildstein, the Port Authority executive and Christie ally who ordered the closures in September, responded, “Got it.”
Bill Baroni
Role: Former deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Hometown: Hamilton, N.J.
Convicted on Nov. 4, 2016, Baroni became the public face of what Democrats have called a coverup of the true reasons behind the lane closures.
Federal prosecutors indicted him — along with Kelly, Christie’s former deputy chief of staff — on May 1, 2015 for using the bridge as a political weapon and then covering it up.
In November 2013, after more than a month of swirling questions and few answers, Baroni appeared before the New Jersey Legislature and insisted that the lane closings were part of a traffic study. He acknowledged a communication breakdown but said the closings were necessary to fix an unfair allocation of tollbooth lanes at the New Jersey entrance of the bridge.
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Portraying the three access lanes and their tollbooths as a special entrance that only Fort Lee residents used, Baroni told legislators from other parts of New Jersey that their constituents, motorists approaching the bridge from other roads, waited longer as a result.
But his testimony has since been discredited. Motorists from throughout northern New Jersey do use the access lanes, not just Fort Lee residents.
And the number of tollbooths dedicated to them is roughly proportional to the amount of traffic that flows through them on the bridge’s upper level.
David Samson
Role: Former Port Authority chairman
Hometown: Caldwell, N.J.
A onetime mentor to Christie, Samson resigned as chairman of the Port Authority in the aftermath of the lane-closure scandal, amid intensifying scrutiny of his private business interests.
In July, he pleaded guilty to knowingly and corruptly soliciting and accepting a thing of value — namely nonstop flights from United Airlines to his vacation home in South Carolina. He faces sentencing in October.
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Samson, a former New Jersey attorney general, was the founding partner of the powerful law firm Wolff & Samson, now called Chiesa Shahinian & Giantomasi PC. The name was changed after Samson retired from the firm in April 2015.
Ten days after the lane-closure scandal erupted Jan. 8, 2014, the mayor of Hoboken, N.J., publicly alleged that Christie administration officials had threatened to withhold Superstorm Sandy recovery money from her city unless she fast-tracked a real-estate development that a client of Samson’s law firm had proposed. Administration officials have strongly denied the allegation.
In the ensuring weeks, Samson also came under fire for votes he took as Port Authority chairman that appeared to benefit some of his firm’s other clients.
David Wildstein
Role: Former Port Authority executive given the title of director of interstate capital projects
Hometown: Montville, N.J.
David Wildstein, formerly a high-ranking Port Authority executive and fierce advocate of the Christie administration, pleaded guilty May 1, 2015, in federal court for charges related to his role in the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal. He implicated two other former Christie appointees, Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Baroni.
Wildstein pleaded to two counts of conspiracy in fraudulently misapplying property of an organization receiving federal money and one civil-rights charge.
In court, the judge asked Wildstein: “Did you punish the mayor … by deliberately causing traffic problems?”
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“Yes,” Wildstein answered.
Wildstein ordered the closing of two of three access lanes from Fort Lee to the George Washington Bridge. He resigned in December 2013, citing the controversy as a distraction, before turning over records to a legislative committee that linked the closures to Governor Christie’s office.
Weeks before the closures, Wildstein received an email from Christie’s deputy chief of staff, Kelly, that read, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”
“Got it,” Wildstein replied.
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