MICHAEL KARAS/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Governor Christie on Saturday at a Super Bowl event in Times Square. He declined to comment on allegations that he knew of the George Washington Bridge lane closures.
TYSON TRISH/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Former Port Authority executive David Wildstein’s credibility is being challenged by the Christie administration.
The Christie administration launched a fierce counterattack Saturday on the credibility of a former ally who a day earlier had alleged the governor knew about lane closures at the George Washington Bridge as they were happening in September.
“Bottom line — David Wildstein will do and say anything to save David Wildstein,” read a copy of an email, obtained by The Record and sent to the governor’s friends and supporters.
The attack, a sharp departure from Christie’s defensive posture on Friday, was presented in a blistering rundown of negative comments made about Wildstein in newspaper stories — even pointing to a reported dispute Wildstein had as a teenager with a high school teacher.
It represented a dramatic reversal from glowing comments by the governor’s office in December when Wildstein, his No. 2 executive at the Port Authority, resigned amid the growing bridge controversy.
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The email Saturday also repeated assertions by Christie that he learned about the lane closures from “press accounts after the fact.” But it left unresolved precisely which press reports the administration was referring to, a question that has become central to piecing together the timeline of Christie’s involvement. That timeline could be crucial, as Christie faces growing doubts about his claim that he was unaware of the closures or the subsequent months-long effort to obscure the true reasons behind them.
The broadside came a day after Wildstein, Christie’s former high school classmate, fired his own shot, leading to heightened criticism of the already embattled governor.
On Friday, Wildstein’s attorney released a letter stating that “evidence exists” indicating the governor knew about the closures as they were happening. He also mentioned other controversies that have grown out of the bridge scandal in his letter — widely seen as thinly veiled suggestions to federal prosecutors that he could spill the administration’s secrets. Wildstein’s attorney previously said his client would tell his side of the story if he was granted criminal immunity. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey is investigating the closures.
The email on Saturday sought to establish deep and long-standing personality flaws in someone who was, until recently, not only a key Port Authority aide but an ally who regularly interacted with members of Christie’s inner circle.
“In David Wildstein’s past, people and newspaper accounts have described him as ‘tumultuous’ and someone who ‘made moves that were not productive’,” the email stated. It cited a profile of Wildstein that ran in The Record in 2012, in which Wildstein is described by colleagues and past associates as “a political animal” and a “very contentious person.”
The email signaled a bitter and highly personal split between the governor and the man he recommended for a newly created $150,000 job at the Port Authority in 2010. Wildstein, who had spent the previous decade as the anonymous writer of a successful political blog, was regarded as highly loyal to the governor until the bridge scandal.
On Friday evening, Christie’s administration scrambled to respond to the letter, asserting that the governor’s past statements were accurate while at the same time raising more questions about the exact timeline of when he learned about the lane closures.
It was the governor’s deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, who sent Wildstein a message weeks before the closings that stated: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”
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