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By Carl Golden
From his first floor corner office in the Statehouse, Gov. Chris Christie can see the finish line some 15 months distant.
In light of the damning testimony in the first week of the Bridgegate trial, Christie's task is to reach it without further harm to his administration, his standing in the Republican Party and his political future. It is enough to test the mettle of even the most talented damage control expert.
Witnesses portrayed an out of control administration obsessed with gaining political advantage, willing to skirt the rules and suspend clear-eyed judgment to secure an edge. It was also broadly hinted the activities were known throughout the governor's office organizational structure.
Federal prosecutors stunned observers by contending at the trial's outset that the governor was made aware of the September 2013 closing of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee in real time; that is, while cars, trucks, buses and a few emergency vehicles sat idling for hours in a massive gridlock.
Christie has not been charged with a crime, insisting he knew nothing of the scheme either before or after it was set in motion, learning of it, he said, only following the disclosure that Bridget Anne Kelly, his deputy chief of staff, was a central player in an act of political retribution to punish the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee for his refusal to endorse the governor's re-election.
Kelly is the pebble that started the landslide, eventually bringing Christie from an unprecedented 70 percent public approval rating in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and a 23-point re-election margin to 23 percent public support and whispers of impeachment.
Kelly and Bill Baroni, former deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, stand accused of conspiring in a scheme to close the lanes and create four days of massive traffic jams in Fort Lee to send a clear message to Mayor Mark Sokolich that refusing to endorse Christie came at a price.
David Wildstein, former director of interstate capital projects at the authority, has pleaded guilty to his role in the scheme and is the key prosecution witness.
What has emerged at this early stage of the trial is the portrayal of an administration in which "reward friends and punish enemies" was a dominant culture.
Email exchanges between Wildstein and Kelly reveal their complicity in the closures as well as their delight over what they had wrought, including joking about children marooned in school buses.
The Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, as early as 2011, maintained a spreadsheet of mayors and local officials targeted for a full court press to persuade them to support the governor's re-election campaign, offering enticements and rewards for their endorsement.
Sokolich, for instance, testified he received personal favors from Baroni, as well as invitations to be a guest in the governor's suite at MetLife Stadium and for a luncheon at Drumthwacket.
Such inducements are common practice and not unusual in and of themselves. Previous governors have engaged in similar activities, some successful and others not.
What was striking was the revelation that the Port Authority, with the governor's office acquiescence, offered to donate steel from the World Trade Center towers to be placed in local parks or common areas as memorials honoring the memory of those who perished. Attendance at football games or breaking bread with the governor are relatively innocuous, but the pain and heartbreak of the families and relatives of loved ones killed in the terrorist attacks can only be deepened at the callous, insensitive use of the remnants of the towers as bargaining chips in a cheap political scheme.
The depiction of the Port Authority, a $7 billion per year agency with responsibility for airports, port facilities and mass transit, is hardly any more attractive.
Wildstein, in his testimony, made it clear his job at the authority was to assure that whatever Christie wanted, Christie got. The governor, he said, was his constituency -- a constituency of one.
The authority has emerged as a dysfunctional entity beset by intrigue and backstabbing, awash in plots to give one state greater benefits than the other. For an agency whose mission is the economic betterment of the region through interstate cooperation, it has become one of fierce competition and internal strife.
The trial is expected to last another five weeks with testimony from current and former administration staffers, local officials, Port Authority executives and others whose involvement may have been more peripheral. While there's been some suggestion that Christie may be called to testify, that doesn't appear likely.
Whatever the outcome, Bridgegate has left an indelible stain on the Christie administration.
Carl Golden is a senior contributing analyst with the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University.
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