The Latest On New Jersey 'Bridgegate' Trial
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Saturday, September 24, 2016
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All week, jurors in New Jersey have been hearing about how aides to Gov. Chris Christie orchestrated the closure of lanes on the George Washington Bridge in 2013. We'll catch up on the trial.
Transcript
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
A jury in a federal courtroom in Newark, N.J., has heard testimony all week about a political culture of patronage, backscratching and sometimes threats. It's all part of the trial of two former aides to the governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie. They're accused of orchestrating the closure of several lanes of the George Washington Bridge - that's the world's busiest bridge - in 2013. Prosecutors say the pair were acting on Christie's behalf to punish the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, N.J., who hadn't endorsed the governor for re-election that year. WNYC's reporter Andrea Bernstein's been following the Bridgegate story from the very start and joins us now. Andrea, thanks for being with us.
ANDREA BERNSTEIN, BYLINE: Thank you.
SIMON: Five days into the trial. Is there a theme?
BERNSTEIN: I am really taken aback by the amount of lying that's been acknowledged. We learned this week that even though everyone seemed to know very early on that this was not a traffic study, that it was a lane closure scheme for political retaliation, that officials on the New Jersey side insisted it was a traffic study and that officials on the New York side, appointees of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, went along with it because they thought that they could extract concessions from the New Jersey side, such as money for a New York port. Even the mayor of Fort Lee, the victim of this whole scheme, said months after the lane closures in a letter to the editor that there was no retaliation even though he knew that wasn't true. And he testified this week that he did that because he was petrified of what Chris Christie could do to him if he said otherwise.
SIMON: There is, of course, a long history of political scandal in New Jersey, but I wonder if we've learned anything about the fine points this week.
BERNSTEIN: Yeah. The murky outlines have been known, but what's stunning is the detail. So just to step back a moment, Republican Chris Christie in 2013 was trying to get a lot of Democratic support so he could create an argument that he had bipartisan support for his 2016 election bid. So we learned this week in court that as early as 2011 his aides were keeping detailed accounts of what favors they'd given to Democratic mayors, and this is in Trenton. And they kept track of who'd gotten gifts of bits of steel from the World Trade Center towers to things like Giants tickets and a seat in the governor's box at Devils games in New Jersey.
SIMON: And of course, Governor Christie is a close adviser and transition chair for Donald Trump. Is this in any way tied into the Trump campaign now?
BERNSTEIN: Well, even though Trump said during the primary campaign that Christie totally knew about the bridge, he is now standing by Christie. But we have already seen witnesses on the stand that are now senior people in the Trump campaign who were involved in this aggressive strategy of courting Democratic mayors. Chris Christie's campaign manager, Bill Stepien, is now the national field director for the Trump campaign. And Stepien is the guy who was the architect of the carrot-and-stick approach.
What Christie is doing right now is he is putting together the Trump administration. He's making all the hiring decisions, and it's coming at quite a moment when there has been testimony in court that he knew about this payback scheme. The trial could embarrass Christie and Trump. It could raise serious questions about their veracity and their competence. But for Christie, the court of public opinion is really the only court that will weigh in as prosecutors have declined to charge him.
SIMON: WNYC's Andrea Bernstein, thanks so much for being with us.
BERNSTEIN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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