New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie delivers his State of the State address in Trenton, N.J., on Jan. 14.(Photo: Julio Cortez, AP)
Story Highlights
- Committee will expand probe to consider allegations by Hoboken mayor
- Mayor claims Christie's office conditioned disaster aid on approving a development project
- Christie's office vehemently denies the claim
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie spent the weekend in Florida meeting with key donors despite new trouble at home, with Democratic lawmakers saying they're ready to expand the "Bridgegate" investigation to look at claims that politics played a role in the distribution of Sandy relief funds.
Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer said over the weekend that Christie's administration withheld Superstorm Sandy recovery aid because the city wouldn't approve a major redevelopment project pitched by David Samson's law firm. Samson is also board chairman at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the George Washington Bridge.
Samson received one of the 20 subpoenas issued last week by an Assembly panel investigating politically motivated lane closures at the bridge in September. Christie has already issued a lengthy public apology for the lane closures and the traffic jams that ensued, but he said the scheme was carried out by aides without his knowledge.
Christie's office has denied Zimmer's claims. Spokesman Colin Reed pointed out that Zimmer publicly praised Christie months after the alleged conversations in which she claims disaster aid was tied to the development project. Reed said Zimmer's description of a May conversation with the lieutenant governor "is categorically false."
Assemblyman John Wisniewski, who is leading the investigation into the lane closures, said on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday that his committee will look into Zimmer's complaints but needs to "look at the facts, hear her story, look at the e-mails and consider where we go next."
"Clearly the allegation that she was asked to support a redevelopment project where there was funding from the Port Authority, which we're investigating, in turn for her getting money for her municipality, raises serious allegations. We don't know where it goes. We don't know if there's more to it. I think it's something the committee has to consider as part of the overall investigation," Wisniewski said.
Christie made the rounds in the Sunshine State over the weekend at a series of fundraisers but refused to take questions from reporters.
Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani also appeared on Meet the Press' and said Wisniewski should not be leading the investigation because he has already said he found it hard to believe Christie didn't know about his office's involvement in the lane closures.
"When you announce before you even investigate it you don't believe the subject of the investigation, or the person who's the ultimate focus of the investigation, it would seem to me the assemblyman has an ethical obligation to step down, to recuse himself. He's no longer an impartial arbiter of the facts," Giuliani said. "He should not be handling the investigation. It gives it no sense of credibility, and it clearly is a partisan witch hunt," Giuliani said.
A spokesman for Wisniewski, Tom Hester Jr., responded that Giuliani "quite simply has no idea what he's talking about,'' and that Wisniewski "has been praised by Republicans for his work and Republicans unanimously voted with Democrats to continue the investigation into what happened with this threat to public safety and abuse of government power.''
Contributing: Paul Singer, USA TODAY
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