Yesterday a New Jersey state judge ruled that – by a legal reasoning I still don’t quite fathom – Gov. Christie’s key BridgeGate aides don’t have to turn over documents because it violates their 5th Amendment rights. It had always been my understanding that except for the narrowest of circumstances, the 5th protects you against testifying against yourself, not turning over probative documents in an investigation. But whatever the merits, the judge has spoken. And what that likely means – though no one has quite said so yet – is that the New Jersey state legislative investigation is probably over. There’s just not much more they can do if they can’t compel the key players to turn over more documents.
That’s a big win for Bridget Kelly and Bill Stepien, Christie’s former campaign manager. It’s an equally big win, though he can’t claim it, for Gov. Christie himself. It’s also a big disappointment for reporters covering the story and people following it and wanting to know more.
But it seems very much a pyrrhic victory. The legislative probe – formal and informal – got the US Attorney on the case. And all signs suggest that that investigation is moving into overdrive, with key scandal figure David Wildstein in the process of trying to make a deal to cooperate with prosecutors.
Now, needless to say if there’s no crime, there’s no problem. And if Christie truly knew nothing about it or the subsequent attempt to cover it up, no problem for him. But it to put it mildly, US Attorney’s don’t operate by whatever weird logic applies between NJ judges and the NJ legislature. So good to them keeping those materials out of the hands of what is now the real – if less public – investigation of this case.
Ed. Note: From the department of small ironies: back when Chris Christie ran that US Attorney’s office, it was known to leak like a sieve, especially in its fairly copious investigations of Democrats (though, in fairness, he hit some GOP machine pols too). And one of the go-to recipients of those leaks was none other than David Wildstein, then running a must-read New Jersey political blog.
