New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has a 300-page report clearing his name. He has recorded two national television interviews to share with America his feelings of frustration and remorse. At an hour-long press conference Friday, the onetime GOP presidential favorite did everything but unfurl a “Case Closed” banner behind him.
Ahead of a trip out West laced with 2016 implications, Christie made a great, heave-ho attempt this week to push past the political nightmare known as “Bridgegate.” He is due to speak at a Republican Jewish Coalition event this weekend in Las Vegas, followed by Republican Governors Association fundraising retreat in Park City, Utah.
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Republicans close to Christie and his team say the past week represented their most concerted effort so far to get clear of the Fort Lee traffic scandal. With an internal review prepared by the Christie-hired law firm Gibson Dunn, the governor faced the press to declare he’s ready to move on.
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Christie announced that his longtime political ally, David Samson, had voluntarily resigned as chairman of the Port Authority, the agency most directly implicated in the Bergen County hijinks. He said he is prepared to follow the Gibson Dunn report’s advice when it comes to the management of his administration, and perhaps a suggestion to break up the Port Authority into separate New York and New Jersey entities.
If the page-turning process is far from complete, the immediate goal of Christie’s multi-day media tour was more realistic: to get out of a defensive posture and give the governor something more concrete to say when people ask him about the mess unfolding in his home state.
The move from playing defense to leaning forward was on vivid display in the contrast between a soft-focus Thursday interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer and his combative Friday press conference. In the space of a day, Christie went from sighing about “Bridgegate” as the “toughest time in my professional life” – an episode in which he “fell short” as a leader – to chastising reporter after reporter for, he said, getting their facts wrong.
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The abrupt shift startled even some Christie allies, who expected him to extend his hair-shirt shtick into another public appearance.
“Why don’t you just get to the question, cut the commentary a little,” he urged one reporter Friday, only shortly after the start of his press conference. “You have to get the facts right if you’re going to ask me a question,” Christie told another. He described two different questions as “beneath” the reporters who asked them.
The former federal prosecutor even reiterated, at some length, that he will decide whether or not to run for president independently of this whole unpleasant saga. Christie said he didn’t think the George Washington Bridge fiasco would weigh heavily on how voters consider “my candidacy, if there even is one.”
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“The way I’ll make a decision about whether to seek any future office will be: do I think it’s best for me and my family, and I do I have something unique and particular to offer?” he said. “Anybody who tries to game out the politics of this stuff years in advance, the last several weeks have probably shown them that that’s a fool’s errand.”
Christie acknowledged up front that the Fort Lee story is not over. “I think the report will stand the test of time, but it will be tested,” he said.
The idea is not to close the book on “Bridgegate” forever. Christie’s team is well aware that months of legislative and prosecutorial inquiries lie ahead. To the reporters, investigators and 2016 competitors closely tracking the ongoing George Washington Bridge story, the Gibson Dunn report left countless questions unanswered.
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