Gov. Chris Christie’s (R-NJ) former deputy chief of staff, Bridget Kelly, said through her lawyer Monday evening that she will invoke her 5th Amendment right not to testify before a state legislative panel. She is also refusing to turn over documents subpoenaed by the panel, according to the Bergen Record.
Kelly’s attorney, Michael Critchley, Sr., told the panel that the requested information “directly overlaps with a parallel federal grand jury investigation” while also invoking Kelly’s general right to personal privacy.
“Unfettered access to, among other things, Ms. Kelly’s personal diaries, calendars and all of her electronic devices amounts to an inappropriate and unlimited invasion of Ms. Kelly’s personal privacy and would also potentially reveal highly personal confidential communications completely unrelated to the reassignment of access lanes to the George Washignton Bridge.”
Kelly has been at the center of the growing scandal since January 8th when emails showed she had passed the order to Port Authority appointee David Wildstein to trigger a week of traffic jams in Port Lee. “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” Kelly wrote in an Aug. 13 email.
Christie fired Kelly the following day, saying “She lied to me.”
