The Democratic mayor of Hoboken, N.J. on Thursday responded to a report calling her allegations against the administration of Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) “demonstrably false.”
“Randy Mastro could have written his report the day he was hired and saved the taxpayers the million dollars in fees he billed in generating this one-sided whitewash of serious misconduct by the Christie Administration,” Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer said in a statement, referring to the lawyer who led the internal investigation of the scandals that have erupted around Christie.
Earlier this year, Zimmer publicly accused the Christie administration of threatening to withhold Hurricane Sandy relief money if she did not support a development project in her city. In their report, the legal team representing Christie’s office rejected her claims.
“Mastro’s conclusion that there was nothing to the threat that was made to me that Hoboken would not get the Sandy relief money it needs and deserves unless I supported the Rockefeller Group project was sadly predictable,” Zimmer said. “Surprisingly, as flawed as this report is, it includes the damning fact that after the Lieutenant Governor made the threat to me in the parking lot, she got in her car and told an aide that I was ‘not ‘playing ball.’ ‘”
Zimmer declined to be interviewed by Mastro and his team, but said that she is “ready and willing” to testify under oath as part of any “legitimate investigation.”
“This report only reinforces the soundness of the decision I made not to cooperate with Mr. Mastro’s so-called investigation,” Zimmer said. “To do so would only have leant credibility to an effort that, unfortunately for the taxpayers of New Jersey, has no credibility or legitimacy whatsoever.”
