On a conference call with reporters just now, former U.S. Attorney and New Jersey Republican gubernatorial nominee Chris Christie sought to open a new line of attack against Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine’s ethics, hammering the incumbent as a Wall St. trader who has sold out the state — and was then answered by a steady stream of reporters asking him about his own ethics.
Christie attacked Corzine by tying him to the Enron scandal, citing Wall Street Journal articles from 2002. Corzine, as CEO of Goldman Sachs in the late 1990s, signed a letter to the Clinton administration opposing efforts to crack down on financial instruments known as Monthly Income Preferred Securities, which effectively helped Enron to disguise debt as equity.
Christie likened Corzine’s nefarious Wall St. dealings to his conduct as governor — for example, Christie said the incumbent recently sold out the state’s interests in a last-minute deal with the Communications Workers of America union, in the run-up to holding a rally with Vice President Biden. “Because all of this is a pattern, it’s a pattern of conduct by Jon Corzine that shows what he is,” said Christie. “He’s a trader, and traders are only worried about getting the trade in front of them done so they can get that benefit in their pocket.”
The question and answer session, however, did not focus on Corzine’s record on Wall St. Instead, reporters went after Christie with questions about the recently-revealed $46,000 mortgage loan he’d made to a subordinate in the U.S. Attorney’s office, Michele Brown, which he’d failed to report on his financial disclosure forms or on his taxes.
Christie tried to keep it on his preferred topic, attacking Corzine: “He was the guy who personally lobbied the President of the United States to set up tax loopholes for enron that put money in his pocket, but then made the result of that tax increases for the state of New Jersey when $61 million was lost in the pension fund.”
However, reporters kept asking about the Michele Brown story, and how this might conflict with Christie’s own attack on people who don’t honestly report financial transactions. “This continued kind of drumbeat on this, in terms of the propriety of it, is incredibly overdone,” said Christie. “There’s nothing wrong with a superior giving a subordinate a loan. This was done as a friend to a friend, that’s how the loan was done. And there are no long-term ramifications to it, the loan is being repaid.”
Christie insisted that the loan had been properly filed with the Morris County Clerk’s office — which was how the local media tracked it down — and he has filed amended disclosure forms and tax returns for the mere $420 interest he made on it in 2007. “I don’t know why we’re continuing to go back over that,” Christie said. “I’ve already said that.”
“I understand that you all want to continue to talk about it as a problem,” Christie later added. “But I don’t see it as a problem. And the time has come to make sure we’re having fair treatment across the board.”
Christie complained about the hypocrisy of the Corzine campaign to keep pushing the story, and that the media hasn’t given Corzine the same level of scrutiny. Christie said he has disclosed his transactions and corrected mistakes, and that “this is more than we can say about a lot of the financial transactions of the governor, that he’s had.”
