There was big news about Gov. Chris Christie’s “Bridgegate” scandal yesterday. The guy who was in charge of the George Washington Bridge the day the lanes closed says he has evidence Christie knew about it. You may recall that Christie adamantly denied knowing about the closures and blamed them on rogue employees.
A lawyer for the former official, David Wildstein, wrote a letter describing the move to shut the lanes as “the Christie administration’s order” and said “evidence exists as well tying Mr. Christie to having knowledge of the lane closures, during the period when the lanes were closed, contrary to what the governor stated publicly in a two-hour press conference” three weeks ago.
During his news conference, Mr. Christie specifically said he had no knowledge that traffic lanes leading to the bridge had been closed until after they were reopened. “I had no knowledge of this — of the planning, the execution or anything about it — and that I first found out about it after it was over,” he said. “And even then, what I was told was that it was a traffic study.”
OK, we don’t know exactly what evidence Wildstein has or what it shows Christie exactly knowing. But we do know that Christie has emphatically denied knowing about the Bridgegate lane closures until they had been reopened. And we also know that recent reporting by the Times cast doubt on Christie’s “rogue employee” claim.
On last night's Kelly File, Megyn Kelly started the Christie defending right in her introduction. She read the “evidence exists as well tying Mr. Christie…” letter excerpt and said,“Now right now, that’s, like, just waving over you, right? It’s like what? Huh? ...What does that mean?”
Kelly squinted her eyes in cynical disapproval: If it meant Christie “knew,” she continued, “Then why don’t you just say he knew? That’s not what the letter says.” Actually, it is what the letter says. What it doesn’t say is whether it means Christie knew that the lanes had been closed out of political retribution.
Kelly sneered, “The breathlessness… of this and the way that they ran to say, 'He’s caught, he lied! He lied about what he knew!'”
It’s hilariously ironic for Kelly to complain about anyone else’s breathlessness or premature judgment. This is the woman who seemed close to hysteria when a Democratic guest put up a spirited defense of ObamaCare. She’s also the news host who disregarded reasons to suspect an anti-Wendy Davis video and was more intent on attacking Davis in a subsequent interview than Davis’ opponent was.
To her credit, Kelly did challenge her Republican guest, Steve Lonegan, when he argued that everybody knew the lanes had been closed. She noted that the letter contradicted Christie’s timeline of knowledge.
However, Democrat Steve Leser pointed out that Christie said he had not known about the lane closures until an email by Port Authority Executive Director (and Andrew Cuomo appointee) Patrick Foye. Although Leser said Christie said so in his January 9th news conference, I found it in his December 13th news conference:
“The first I ever heard about the issue was when it was reported in the press, which I think was in the aftermath of the leaking of Mr. Foye’s email. I think that was the first I heard of it, but it was certainly well after the whole thing was over before I heard about it.”
Of course, this could turn out to be nothing. But as I wrote in my post on the subject in Addicting Info, this is just the latest revelation in a series of damaging reports that have drip, drip, dripped into the media about Christie since the Bridgegate scandal broke. The trickle includes reports by the mayor of Hoboken, NJ and by athlete Carl Lewis of other threatening behavior by Christie.
But, of course, Kelly didn't go into any of that. When Leser started to explain (he even used the same "drip, drip, drip" language) that other things have come out to discredit and disprove what Christie said in his press conference, Kelly swatted it aside. She interrupted to say, "But I am looking for that in this particular allegations tonight... and I don't see it." She disregarded the fact that Leser had just told her where to look. And then she turned to Republican Lonegan.
I’m surprised she didn’t invite one of Fatso’s better known defenders, former Mayor Rudy “two nouns, a verb and ‘Benghazi’” Giuliani. But even Rudy has been expressing some doubt (though he walked that back the next day; see http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2014/01/8539594/giuliani-fifty-fifty-whether-christie-knew-bridge-orders-updated)
Not that it matters much what I think, but I predicted weeks ago that Christie is finished. He will not finish his term as governor, let alone be considered for president, or even dog catcher — can you imagine a poor pooch being chased by all that jiggling blubber?
