Category: Bridget Kelly

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Chris Christie’s Top Aides Found Guilty in BridgeGate Scandal

One of Donald Trump’s “Best people,” Chris Christie, allowed his top aides to bite the bullet Friday, as the news broke that Bridget Ann Kelly and Bill Baroni were both found guilty in orchestrating lanes closure on the George Washington Bridge in 2013.

Bridget Anne Kelly, the former deputy chief of staff to Christie, and Bill Baroni, the former deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, both faced seven counts of various charges including conspiracy, fraud, and civil rights deprivation.
The verdict is a major setback in Christie’s political career, following a controversy that spans nearly three years and put a significant dent in the Garden State Republican’s presidential ambitions. Christie is heading planning for Republican nominee Donald Trump’s transition if he wins the presidency.
Christie has also functioned as a high profile surrogate for Trump, and was included on a schedule of campaign stops in New Hampshire this weekend put out by the organization.
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bridgegate Bridget Kelly Politics

Bridget Kelly Testifies – Christie Knew about Bridge-gate a Month Before it Happened

Gov. Chris Christie's former Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly, center, leaves Martin Luther King Jr. Courthouse after a hearing, Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2016, in Newark, N.J. Three years after gridlock paralyzed a New Jersey town next to the George Washington Bridge for days, two former allies of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Kelly and Bill Baroni, Christie's former top appointee at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, are being tried on charges of politically motivated lane closures of the George Washington Bridge in 2013. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

Somebody is lying. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has maintained that he knew nothing of the lane closures on the George Washington Bridge, lane closures carried out by his closest administration officials. But testimony after testimony cast more and more doubt on Christie’s claim.

In bombshell testimony Friday, Bridget Anne Kelly said that she told New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) that access lanes to the George Washington Bridge would be closed for a traffic study a month before the plan actually was carried out in September 2013.

The former deputy chief of staff testified that the governor approved the study, which prosecutors allege actually was cover-up for a revenge plot against a local Democratic mayor.

Christie has long maintained that he knew nothing about the lane closures that brought traffic in the town of Fort Lee, New Jersey to a days-long standstill until he read about them in the press in late September or early October 2013. Yet Kelly and other former Christie allies have contradicted what Christie’s said about what he knew of the lane closures and when throughout the federal trial investigating the so-called Bridgegate scheme.

Telling her version of the saga for the first time from the witness stand Friday, Kelly testified that former Port Authority official David Wildstein informed her on Aug. 12, 2013 that he was moving forward with a traffic study that he said would create major traffic problems in Fort Lee, according to WABC. Kelly testified she then informed Christie about the study, and alleged he said he was alright with it.

“He said, ‘All right.’ He didn’t really react. He said that’s fine. He said, ‘How is the relationship with Mayor Sokolich’ of Fort Lee?” Kelly testified, according to Philly.com. “And I didn’t know. I really didn’t know.”

The next day she sent the email that would cast a shadow over Christie’s administration for years to come: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” she wrote to Wildstein.

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Bridget Kelly News Politics

Bridget Kelly Responds to “Sexist Remarks” in Christie’s Bridge Gate Report

The lady at the center of the BridgeGate scandal is no longer staying quite. In a statement issued by her lawyers, Bridget Kelly slammed the assertions made by Christie’s lawyers that she closed the lanes on the George Washington Bridge last September because of a failed relationship she had with Bill Stepien.

The response.

Having reviewed the report of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP, as well as listened to the comments of Randy Mastro, Esq., we note that by Mr. Mastro’s own admission, he did not have access to all information. Of course, without reviewing all pertinent evidence, any conclusions that are to be drawn are by definition incomplete. The report’s venomous, gratuitous, and inappropriate sexist remarks concerning Ms. Kelly have no place in what is alleged to be a professional and independent report.

There appear to be two distinct versions of the George Washington Bridge lane closings. On the one hand, Mr. Wildstein, through his counsel, has taken one clear position. On the other hand, Mr. Mastro has staked a different view. Thus, Ms. Kelly’s evidence could be critical to verifying either of the two competing versions of events. A preemptive strike to isolate Ms. Kelly and impugn her credibility is not surprising. Despite Mr. Mastro’s editorialized comments to the contrary, Ms. Kelly is not a liar. She is a single mother of four children who was deeply devoted and committed to her job at the Office of the Governor. She worked tirelessly to pursue the goals of the Office during her tenure.

The only credible investigation into the lane closings is being conducted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. If Ms. Kelly were provided with the appropriate procedural safeguards, she will be fully cooperative and provide truthful and complete answers to any questions asked of her by the appropriate law enforcement authorities.

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bridgegate Bridget Kelly Politics

Bridge Gate Scandal – They’re Asking a Judge To Throw Out Their Subpoenas

Last week, Bryan Fischer said that pleading the Fifth was a sure sign of guilt. Of course he wasn’t talking about the participants in Chris Christie’s BridgeGate scandal, because those people are on his side of the political isle.

Well now it seems that pleading the Fifth and refusing to turn over subpoenaed documents are not enough. The main characters in the BridgeGate scandal now want a judge to legalize their decision.

Two figures in a political payback plot that has overshadowed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s administration will attempt to convince a judge that they shouldn’t be forced to turn over documents to a legislative panel.

Lawyers for former Christie campaign manager Bill Stepien and fired Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Kelly have asked the judge to throw out their subpoenas.They say handing over personal emails, text messages and planning calendars would be like testifying against themselves.

They also cite the possibility of criminal prosecution as a legal basis for not complying with a request for correspondence involving a plot to create traffic jams near the George Washington Bridge.

More than a dozen individuals and organizations close to Christie have complied with similar subpoenas.

Oral arguments are scheduled for Tuesday.

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Bridget Kelly Politics

They Joked About Causing Traffic Problems Before Bridge-Gate Began

David Wildstein

“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” – the now infamous quote by Bridget Kelly that closed down lanes on the busiest bridge in the world – was not the first time Christie’s people spoke about willfully causing problems for the constituents of New Jersey.

Documents released by Wildstein to a state legislative committee probing the incident, in which lanes were shut near the busy George Washington Bridge, causing a huge traffic jam, reveal that on August 19 he and Kelly discussed another traffic scheme.

“We cannot cause traffic problems in front of his house, can we?” Kelly wrote in a message to Wildstein.

“Flights to Tel Aviv all mysteriously delayed,” Wildstein wrote in reply.

Kelly and Wildstein appear to be joking.

“This is part of the drip, drip, drip of bad news for Christie,” said Lee Miringoff, a political observer and a pollster with Marist College.

The Star-Ledger newspaper has identified the rabbi as Mendy Carlebach of the Chabad of North and South Brunswick who was also a chaplain for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department.

“He has officially pissed me off,” Wildstein wrote.

Carlebach did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Attorneys for Wildstein and Kelly also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Bridget Kelly Politics

Bridget Kelly Invokes 5th Amendment – Will Not Produce Documents

Governor Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, Bridget Kelly, will not turn over documents in response to a legislative subpoena, her lawyer said Monday, making her the second person to invoke constitutional protections against self-incrimination.

The information demanded by a legislative committee about the George Washington Bridge lane closures “directly overlaps with a parallel federal grand jury investigation,” a letter from attorney Michael Critchley, Sr. to the committee’s special counsel states. The letter, obtained by The Record, also cites her right to privacy.

“Moreover, providing the Committee with unfettered access to, among other things, Ms. Kelly’s personal diaries, calendars and all of her electronic devices amounts to an inappropriate and unlimited invasion of Ms. Kelly’s personal privacy and would also potentially reveal highly personal confidential communications completely unrelated to the reassignment of access lanes to the George Washignton Bridge,” Critchley wrote.

Already released records show that Kelly sent an e-mail to a Port Authority executive weeks before the lane closures: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” it said. Christie fired Kelly last month after the e-mail surfaced. He also cut ties with his former campaign manager, Bill Stepien, whose attorney last week also declined to produce the documents requested by a subpoena

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