“What I’ve seen today for the first time is unacceptable,” Christie said. “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.”
He also admitted it was a big deal:
“One thing is clear: this type of behavior is unacceptable and I will not tolerate it because the people of New Jersey deserve better,” Christie said.
So, at a minimum, he’s admitted that he’s a shitty manager. It wasn’t some random clerk, it was his deputy chief of staff and his appointee to the Port Authority (and high school classmate, and lifelong friend) who conspired to do this bad, bad thing. Christie knew someone in his administration conspired to do something “unacceptable” for months, and he was only able to find out who from a press report.
It’s pretty clear he has no good alternatives here, but I wonder if stonewalling might not have been a better response.
scav
Brilliant!
RaflW
Blustering against your own assistant chief of staff. That’s so cute!
lamh36
GWB lane closures delayed EMS response to 4 calls in Fort Lee
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
raven
@lamh36: De gun, de smokin!
MattR
Let’s see, Gov Christie says it “is unacceptable and I will not tolerate it because the people of New Jersey deserve better”. In addition he has previously said “I Take Responsibility For Things That Happen On My Watch“. For some reason, I don’t think that means we should expect his resignation letter any time soon.
dmsilev
Then there’s this:
This is going to be amusing to watch.
Scotius
This truly is Nixonian. He was cruising to an easy re-election victory. This was totally unneccessary. They couldn’t help themselves. They just had to be assholes.
David in NY
I think he is stonewalling.
srv
BRIDGHAZI!
What did Christie know, and when did he know it?
MattF
Could just be that the Gov had a conversation with a lawyer. I met a tax lawyer once who noted that the best way of getting someone’s attention was to say ‘You’re going to jail for this.’
Scotius
Any word yet on how those emails surfaced? They’ve made plausible deniability pretty much impossible now.
Tractarian
Over/under on number of months before Bridget Anne Kelly has her own Fox show?
Robert
Thank goodness he’s done. This plus the lies about building a new tunnel system to NYC equals no political future. He’s against capitalism and democracy, since he refused to open up a new route that would bring in money to the state and punished people who wouldn’t vote for him.
dmsilev
@Scotius: They were subpoena’d by Democrats in the state Assembly who have started investigating. A couple of the news stories mentioned that, though many just say ‘documents obtained by [news organization]’.
AnotherBruce
@lamh36: Hopefully this will get the attention of the people who don’t think this was a big deal, but I ainta holding my breath.
dmsilev
@lamh36: Wonder whether a charge of manslaughter could be made to stick.
Scotius
@Tractarian: I love how her first name has the word “bridge”in it.
mazareth
I think he’s lying… Christie’s toast at the national level.
NCSteve
The best response was to do what Bush did when the Plame affair broke: declare, right at the start, that it was unacceptable, promise to look into it and, if anyone in his administration blew her cover, fire them. And then do diddly dick nada. But instead of doing a Bush, he did a Trickster and tried to run that scam too late. It only works if you come out of the gate with it. If you start out denigrate the significance of the story and fully support the flimsy cover story, this tactic doesn’t work.
Mandalay
I think that would have been his worst option. His brand is being a straight talking tough guy, and stonewalling would allow his opponents to paint him instead as a cowardly wimp who was ducking the issue. He had to give a statement eventually, so the sooner the better.
He has plead ignorance. If that is true (or at least not clearly disproven) then he may survive. But I suspect his prepared statement today was actually written weeks ago, knowing that the shit would eventually hit the fan.
Trollhattan
Confess that, separated by three time zones, I’ve never taken Christie seriously as a national candidate. I may enjoy watching Tony Soprano get the newspaper in his robe and slippers but I’d never let him watch my kid. Clearly, there are a number of folks back east who would.
At least now I can not think about him a bit less.
Shortstop
@Scotius: ha! I was too busy rolling my eyes at her name (she’s obviously what we in Chicago call “professionally Irish”) to notice.
chopper
It is wrong, this thing that I only just now found out about, which was done, again, without me knowing anything. Had i known earlier, which i must reiterate that i did not, it would not have happened. Have i mentioned my ignorance vis a vis this outrageous act? Cause the whole point i’m getting at here is, it wasn’t me.
just one more canuck on a phone
Known up here in Canada as the Stephen Harper defense
Shortstop
@Trollhattan: I’ve been thinking all along that, with the exception of a few loudmouthed towns like my own, Christie’s brand of brashness, bullying and bluster doesn’t play very well outside the northeast — and not even within most of it. He has never seemed nationally viable to me, but I came to believe that with nobody else realistically in the pipeline, and the party beginning to push back against the ‘bagger fringe, he’d be the GOP candidate. So I’m pleased as punch at this development.
Mandalay
@chopper:
Yep, that statement was written by a herd of lawyers. Their mission was to ensure that if he goes to court he he can wriggle out of everything that it superficially seems to assert.
lamh36
I say we give Christie the same courtesy the GOP gave Obama during the IRS “scandal”…NONE!!!
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
@NCSteve: Good points, he really stepped on his own dick with that initial response, which was exactly the kind of glib arrogance the media has trained him to perform in return for belly rubs and choruses of “good boy! good moderate northeastern straight-talkin’ Republican!”
Just think, the great white hope of GOP 2016 was outsmarted and outclassed by George W Bush.
Baud
The real rhetorical problem with this statement is “for the first time.” It’s insertion is so awkward, it makes the whole thing seem duplicitous, even if you’re someone who’s inclined to give Christie the benefit of the doubt.
jl
Maybe Christie should have pretended to investigate it himself for a day or two before he expressed his outrage and shock that his hack political goons acted like hack political goons?
Edit: I mean, it almost looks like he knew what was up all along, at least since the deal hit the news, and didn’t give a shit, but panicked or didn’t think it through and went into outraged victim mode asap after the first hard copy of the real dirt hit the news.
But that couldn’t be, could it? Say it ain’t so!
max
It’s pretty clear he has no good alternatives here, but I wonder if stonewalling might not have been a better response.
Naw. He had two basic choices here: what he did (pretend he’s a good human being at heart), or go all in on the ‘FUCK YOU HOSERS!’ thing. He went for possibility one, which means that if he gets tied to the thing in any way shape or form, he’s reached ‘I am not a crook’ stage.
Stonewalling would be admitting he did it after he said it was all BS. (And aimai is right in the other thread – now he’s criss-crossed himself out – he bravely ran away when he could have thrilled the Strong Leader crowd, but still hasn’t avoided getting stuck with the ‘Bully’ label.)
That’s in addition to going all in on pro-immigration apparently (big thrills for Redstate there).
I am with Trollhatten – I’ve never understood the appeal of the guy. What I have understood, which apparently the Northeastern folks don’t get is that at this point he might as well spend the Iowa Caucuses part of the campaign wandering in Iowa around wearing a shirt that said ‘Hawkeyes SUCK! Vote for me, loser!’ He could have conceivably have run in New Hampshire and still finished maybe 3rd in Iowa, but now he’s looking at finishing fifth. Or 7th or 12th depending on how many Republicans run. (Mitt Romney appeared to have won Iowa for a week or so, so winning in New Hampshire meant he won the first two states. Christie would wind up running as the candidate of… New Hampshire, which is kiss of death with the Tea Baggers, and the regular flavor ‘heartland’ Republicans.)
With a track record like he has, he probably wouldn’t win in New Hampshire either at this point. If he somehow got nominated he would them lose badly to Hillary. (Or Schweitzer should it come to that.)
The bloom is off the rose, and the manure smell is becoming overwhelming and the usual crowd of political consultants angling for money are going to drop him (as flavor of the month) so fast your head will spin.
max
[‘Some neo-cons will no doubt continue to carry a torch. Because this is good news for John McCain.’]
chopper
@Baud:
it does smack of ‘the fat man doth protest too much’.
Mandalay
@Baud:
That, and a lot more besides.
The entire statement is carefully crafted pablum for the masses. It says nothing. Exactly what had Christie “seen today”? Exactly what was “unacceptable”? Exactly how was he “misled”, and by whom? What specific conduct was “inappropriate and unsanctioned”, and made without Christie’s “knowledge”?
Holding Christie to anything in that statement will be like nailing jelly to the wall if he ends up in front of a judge.
rikyrah
love the title of this post.
LOL
Jay C
I thought stonewalling HAD BEEN Christie’s response to the GWB flap? For a couple of months now we’ve been listening to him try to dismiss the whole issue as nonsense and bluster BS at anyone who even dared suggest there was any political component to the lane-closure affair. Of course, now that there are documents out contradicting him, he’s changed his tune pronto. So what would anyone expect….
PS: For me, Christie’s disclaimers reek of bullshit, and have something like zero credibility: I wonder if our “MSM” will be diligently investigating this? (rhetorical question: of course not)
chopper
apparently, the dems doing this investigation have more docs. this is gonna get better.
JPL
uhoh.. NBC and CBS news led off with Christi and his statement didn’t help. They both had the mayor of Ft. Lee on who spoke about emergencies. This is good news if McCain wants to run again.
MattF
Also, pointing out (correctly) that “The people of New Jersey deserve better” may not be the totally smartest line for him to take.
Gravenstone
@Tractarian: Depends on how photogenic she is, or can be made to become.
jl
@JPL: McCain could say “I’m a better man than Christie, when I want some pay back, I go apeshit in person. I’m a mensch!”
dmsilev
TBogg on the Twittermachine:
He (TBogg) has been on a roll all afternoon; this is like a hanging curveball for him.
Gravenstone
@dmsilev: More likely reckless endangerment, or similar. But yes, accessories to the death of this woman would certainly make sense.
JustRuss
@Baud:
Indeed, that’s quite a tell. The notion that one of his people would a pull such a stunt without running it by him is quite hard to swallow.
Culture of Truth
I wonder if stonewalling might not have been a better response.
Not anymore. He’s been stonewalling for months, making light of the problems and even saying the closures were justified. With these revelations, he had only a few hours to toss everyone under the bus or implicitly endorse their actions.
MattF
@JPL: Or, maybe, zombie Reagan.
Tokyokie
I wonder whether he checked with his administration’s passengers first to see whether they wanted to be thrown under the bus. If he’s really serious, Kelley should be immediately defenestrated.
Culture of Truth
CHRISTIE 2016: SURE HE’S OBNOXIOUS, BUT HE’S ALSO CLUELESS
Culture of Truth
CHRISTIE 2016, OR ELSE
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
Ten minutes till Tweety, and we find out what the true Village Id and font of all mancrushes thinks of all this.
Culture of Truth
VOTE CHRISTIE OR THE BRIDGE GETS IT
AnotherBruce
CNN is really fucking worthless, every time I look they are covering crap that no one could care about. You can bet your life that if this were a democratic senator they’d be all over it like flies on shit. Which I think is a good comparison for CNN reporting.
AnotherBruce
CNN is really fucking worthless, every time I look they are covering crap that no one could care about. You can bet your life that if this were a democratic senator they’d be all over it like flies on shit. Which I think is a good comparison for CNN reporting.
lamh36
Christie Administration’s Bridge Lane Closure Slowed Search for Missing 4-Year-Old, Says Official
beltane
@Culture of Truth: A Double-Stuff Dubya?
Gex
@Culture of Truth: You wouldn’t want something bad to happen to your grandmother, would you? Vote Christie 2016!
jl
Christe! Two leaders in one: a ruthless goon AND a clueless loon.
Roxy
Memories for the Sgt. Schultz defense:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeyGhMwbb2Y
Villago Delenda Est
@Culture of Truth:
LEAVE THE GUN, TAKE THE CHRISTIE
Ned Ludd
@Gravenstone: How about a civil suit too, naming Christie (among others) personally. If criminal charges can’t stick, the discovery phase of a civil suit could be enlightening.
lamh36
@Jim, Foolish LIteralist: looks like Chris hard one for Christie is over based on that first segment.
The story will be told though once we see Joey Scar tomorrow morning. If ole Joe’s nose is read we can bet it’s from a little liquor in his coffee. He has been riding Christie’s jock real hard
Citizen_X
Pansy. Rob Ford wouldn’t have apologized.
Gopher2b
All or most of the emails are on a GMAIL account, the official email provider of NJ govt….err no. Treasure trove here folks. The feeding frenzy just started.
feebog
I don’t see how Rachel Maddow gets through her Christiegate segment tonight without wetting her pants. She has been following this story for weeks and the flames are now clearly visible beneath all the smoke. She is going to be on this the rest of the week like a lioness ready to chow down on a nice meaty antelope.
AnotherBruce
Well apparently CNN is not totally worthless. They have a two part interview of Mayor Sokolich on the front page of their website. It’s really powerful stuff. The Mayor is afraid of what these goons might do to himself and his community when the media stop paying attention to the current mess.
LanceThruster
Heckuva job, Beefy!
Mathguy
Better Schultz: I know nothing
Gopher2b
@Mandalay:
No way. They were totally blindsided by this. My bet the emails and IMs came from his buddy in response to State Assembly subpoena. They went public because he’s supposed to testify tomorrow. They (Christie) either didn’t know they existed or thought they were destroyed.
MikeJ
@Ned Ludd:
Generally speaking, you can’t personally sue public officials for official acts.
Violet
Just clicked on Google News again. The Christie story has been the top story all day. Now the headline says “UPDATE 3” with something about how he says he was misled by staff. The “update” is in all caps. The NY media is all over this story.
Is anyone watching cable news? How’s it playing there?
CJ
Leaving aside for the moment the asinine nature of the thing itself, can we stop playing the politics game all the time and admit that coming clean was the correct response for everyone involved? I cannot think of anyone other than folks who make their money off of the hyped up BS that passes for politics these days benefiting from obfuscation.
CJ
dmsilev
@Gopher2b: I have to wonder what sort of ads Google serves up when you read and write emails about closing bridge access lanes.
aimai
@CJ: He hasn’t “come clean.” He is, in effect, stonewalling by denying responsibility and pretending he just found out about what had to have been a running gag among his closest associates and confidantes until the wsj phoned them.
SiubhanDuinne
@Tractarian:
You can’t spell “Bridget” without “Bridge.”
lamh36
“S.E. Cupp: Chris Christie can resign and win the presidency”
SiubhanDuinne
@Scotius:
Ooops, I guess I was about an hour and a half late!
jl
@aimai: I still think Christie should have waited a day or two and pretended to investigate and stuff, and then make some kind of outraged statement.
This is the ‘first time’ his goons’ thugishness have been on display in public, I can’t imagine this is the ‘first time; for anything else, except maybe Christie didn’t order this particular traffic jam style of payback himself. He probably ordered some kind of payback.
He should have waited and pretend to be doing something or other on the scandal first. Maybe he should have made a pained “oh uh, I was wrong I gotta look into this’ statement today and then make his victim claim later in the week, or something. What happened today was kind of artless, to be blunt and rude about it.
Violet
In case anyone missed it, here’s a photo of Bridget Anne Kelly with Chris Christie. She’s young, cute and blonde. He’s looking at her very appreciatively. Would be highly entertaining if the bridge story also had some sex in it. Then it would have everything.
gbear
Shorter Christie: ” I can’t fucking believe these goddamned morons sent fucking email messages to each other. Fucking shit.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Culture of Truth:
Didn’t he do a song-and-dance about “yeah, ha ha, I was the traffic cone guy!”? Reminded me of Dubya’s routine about searching high and low for the missing WMD.
sensesfail
@Culture of Truth: WIN
jl
@lamh36: Huh, First the ” legal week dilemma that will destroy all liberalism ” piece, now this. I’d think Cupp were writing this stuff from CO or WA, but they only legalized weed, not extra strength LSD, right?
Maybe she is sober and working on kind of new high-as-a-kite Slate style clever contrarianism schtick.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@Tractarian: Brilliant. I had the same thought. She’s the requisite dimwitted nasty Republican blonde.
Violet
@lamh36: WTF? I know her schtick is “young(ish), female and conservative”, but even given that routine, that’s a bit of a stretch.
Roy G.
At the end Christie added, ‘and I will not rest until I find Nicole’s killer.’
dmsilev
@lamh36:
Impressive. An early entrant in the “stupidest statement of the month” sweepstakes. It apparently hasn’t occurred to her that if Christie resigns, that will utterly and completely cement this to him.
BBA
So Christie is against both bridges and tunnels. He basically doesn’t want anyone to get to New York at all.
Violet
Visiting NorthJersey.com is fun right now. The front page of the website is almost entirely about this story. The top photo is actually two photos–one of Christie and the other of the bridge. Just in case someone didn’t make the connection, they’ve got both photos right there together for you.
John Revolta
“S.E. Cupp: Chris Christie can resign and win the presidency”
Sure! Just look how well it worked out for whatshername!
Seriously, Sippy’d better watch out. She could end up sitting next to him five nights a week on some show on Fox.
David Koch
BWAHAHAHHAHAAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHHHHAHH
The story has only been on the Times web site for 8 hours and it already has 1600 comments.
Turn out the lights, the party is over, fatso.
Baud
Mayor of Fort Lee on Chris Hayes. I like him.
dmsilev
Commissar Erickovich has apparently recanted of his wrongthink from earlier today attacking Christie and now says this:
Just keep on fucking that chicken, Erick.
carolannie1949
OK. If Obama doesn’t personally oversee and know everything that each one of tens of thousands of federal employees and contractors does, he is a weak, ineffective manager. If Christie doesn’t know what his senior aides, of whom there are probably fewer than 20, are doing directly in his service, he is a poor good guy blindsided by events.
Tom Q
Did anyone see the Fort Lee mayor (Sokolich, I believe) on with Chris Hayes just now? Hugely entertaining…and this guy can go bluster-to-bluster with Christie and win.
David Koch
–
Violet
@dmsilev: Oh yeah, that’ll work well. Of course none of those fired people would have any reason to hire lawyers and take pleas and tell everything they know to stay out of jail. No reason at all, especially if they’ve been fired.
Violet
@David Koch: Insightful!
dmsilev
@Violet: Never mind the potential for criminal charges, what incentive would these fired staffers have to not testify to investigative committees in the NJ legislature?
Lex
First, I love #BRIDGHAZI.
Second, no way does this happen unless Christie has been fostering an atmosphere in which people feel not just free but encouraged to put down particular groups of constituents.
Third, imagine how this would be playing in the media if a Democratic governor of New Jersey (or his/her staff) had done this same thing to a town that voted against him/her. The noise machine would be unrelenting. Time for Christie to find out what that feels like.
Villago Delenda Est
@lamh36:
Stupid is as stupid does. And S.E. Cupp is competing with Mooselini in the stupid GOP broad stakes.
AnotherBruce
@Tom Q: That “Wildstein needs to get his ass kicked,” quote and it’s follow up was pure gold.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@MikeJ:
Wait…So Obama couldn’t prosecute bush the War Criminal? Our progressive betters say different.
Are we being misled?
danielx
O RLLY?
Does he truly expect that anyone at all is going to believe his loyal and dutiful staff and political-appointee rentboys took such an action all on their own initiative and were going to tell him about it afterwards, kind of like a cat leaving a dead mouse on the doorstep? “Look what we did to that bastard Sokolich and his constituents, boss! Are we good or what?”
Wingnuts in particular will swallow totally ridiculous bullshit, but….no. Nope. Uh-uh. Rule #1 in any organization: don’t surprise the boss.
If it’s the first he’s heard about it, he’s kind of like Ken Lay at Enron. If he didn’t know it was going on, he’s an incompetent manager. If he did know about it, he’s complicit. In either case…
I just absolutely adore watching Villager favorites going down in flames.
Ripley
After resigning to win the presidency, he could resign the presidency to become pope. This guy’s got a strange career trajectory.
replicnt6
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo):
Civil, meet Criminal, Criminal, Civil.
Betsy
@MikeJ: of course you can, if the acts were clearly ranging outside of their official capacity. public immunity does not extend to acts that are undertaken outside of the public authority within which officials are authorized to act.
Closing a bridge that crossed state lines and was built and operated with federal funds probably violated federal law about sixty seven different ways, and those are all federal offenses.
Also depends on what kind of public official. Legislators have extremely broad immunity for their official acts; executive branch official much less and administrative agency officials even less.
Betsy
@MikeJ: of course you can, if the acts were clearly ranging outside of their official capacity. public immunity does not extend to acts that are undertaken outside of the public authority within which officials are authorized to act.
Closing a bridge that crossed state lines and was built and operated with federal funds probably violated federal law about sixty seven different ways, and those are all federal offenses.
Also depends on what kind of public official. Legislators have extremely broad immunity for their official acts; executive branch official much less and administrative agency officials even less.
Tractarian
@Gravenstone:
She looks exactly like the typical Fox anchor.
Death Panel Truck
@chopper: What did the governor know, and when did he stop knowing it?
Paul in KY
He’s lying his ass off. SOP for any douchy-Republican.
Paul in KY
@Tractarian: 5
slippytoad
@danielx:
Such a clumsy, hamfisted liar he is.
hrumpole
That is not even close to a denial. All it says was that he hasn’t read the emails (or doesn’t remember reading the emails) that his senior staff wrote. It would be nice if someone in the media would point that out. (breath held).
Also too–I don’t know that this finishes him with the morning joe crowd. If he says-“yeah, I said some stuff to my staff about how I’d like to get even and they went and broke out the cement shoes. I’m blunt and I get mad. Sometimes I even use colorful language. Even so, they shouldn’t have done that. Those staffers sleep with the fishes now.”
Back comes the rep as the truth teller. Back comes the man crush. He is a long, long way from dead. He ain’t even mostly dead. If his staff rats him out, he’s in big trouble. I think the severance package negotiations are pretty interesting. IMO that’s why no one was fired yet.