While the U.S. attorney for New Jersey did not imply Gov. Chris Christie (R) had anything to do with the BridgeGate scandal, in which two of his former allies were indicted last week, a Republican lawmaker is now suggesting the governor’s political ambitions created the whole mess.
“He’s got no one to blame but himself for this fiasco,” state Sen. Mike Doherty (R) told the news website PolitickerNJ in a story published Tuesday.
By way of explanation, Doherty told the website that Christie’s sweeping effort to garner bipartisan support in his 2013 re-election race against Democrat Barbara Buono led to the governor to obsessively court Democratic support at his fellow Republicans’ expense. Christie’s landslide victory led many to speculate that he could be the GOP’s saving grace in the 2016 presidential race.
“The seeds for this entire event were planted when Chris Christie made the decision that he was going to run for reelection and basically ignore the Republican candidates that were running, including those running for the legislature,” Doherty told PolitickerNJ. “His obsession with getting these 100 Democratic mayors led to this entire Bridgegate scandal.”
A New York Times report from early 2014 also referenced a list of swing towns, colloquially called “the top 100,” that the governor’s re-election campaign targeted to win over in 2013 with an eye toward building momentum for a potential 2016 presidential campaign.
Democrats in the Garden State had long speculated that the lane closures Christie’s former allies had directed on the George Washington Bridge were intended to punish the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, Mark Sokolich, for refusing to endorse the governor’s re-election bid. The indictments handed down Friday confirmed that theory.
PolitickerNJ noted that Doherty has previously criticized Christie for putting his own political ambitions ahead of the concerns of New Jersey residents.
