A legal team representing Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) office recently requested documents from and a private interview with the mayor of Hoboken, N.J., who has made serious allegations about members of Christie’s administration.
The Bergen Record reported Sunday on the requests, after obtaining letters recently sent to Democratic Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer and four other city officials. In the letters, an attorney representing Christie’s office wrote that Zimmer’s allegations are being taken “very seriously.”
Last month, Zimmer publicly accused the Christie administration of threatening to withhold Hurricane Sandy relief aid if she did not support a development project in her city. Zimmer later met with federal prosecutors, and turned over documents to support her claims. (Christie’s administration has denied Zimmer’s allegations.) According to the Record, Zimmer’s attorney on Thursday rebuffed the request for an interview from the governor’s office, citing the federal investigation into the matter.
“We question whether it is appropriate for the Governor’s Office, in essence, to be investigating itself, particularly when an investigation of the same subject matter is being conducted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Zimmer’s attorney wrote back.
Christie’s office recently retained a high-priced defense attorney to represent it in the Hoboken matter, as well as in the investigations of the George Washington Bridge lane closures. The lawyer, Randy Mastro, wrote in his letter to Hoboken officials that he had put together a team of “five former federal prosecutors” to look into Zimmer’s claims, according to the Record.
Read the whole thing here.
