The New Jersey lawmaker who’s been leading the state assembly’s investigation into the scandal surrounding lane closures on the George Washington Bridge said Friday that newly released documents raise further questions about the extent to which New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) administration covered up the mess.
Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D) in a statement drew particular attention to a document showing an apparent meeting between Christie and the chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees the bridge, just days before his deputy chief of staff wrote an email to a top Port Authority appointee saying it was “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”
Read Wisniewski’s full statement below:
“As with so much else we’ve discovered during this investigation, these documents raise many more questions. It’s obvious that senior members of the governor’s staff were involved in spin control once this story broke.
“Given everything we’ve seen and heard, there are two glaring questions that exist right now.
“How much of the full picture was the governor’s senior staff given regarding the development of this lane closure project? With the tight control this administration maintains, it doesn’t stretch the imagination that they were given more information than they let on. When they were preparing spin control, how could they not have been given the whole story?
“Secondly, the documents submitted by David Wildstein and his attorney are documents they deemed specifically related to the lane closures at the George Washington Bridge as per our subpoena request. Included in these documents is a reference to what appears to be a meeting between Port Authority Chairman David Samson and the governor one week before Bridget Kelly issued the order to cause ‘traffic problems’ in Fort Lee. By submitting these documents, Mr. Wildstein is telling us they are related to the lane closures in some way. The question that demands answering is how?
“These are just two of the many answers we will be seeking in the days and weeks ahead.”
This post has been updated.
