$6.51 million

Christie's office billed $6.51 million in legal fees related to GWB scandal

By MICHAEL PHILLIS

The law firm Governor Christie hired to represent his office and investigate his staff’s actions in the George Washington Bridge scandal has billed taxpayers $6.51 million for work through April, according to documents released Friday.

 The released bills detail the sustained activity at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher as the firm produced the report Christie has since used to say he has been exonerated in the scandal that began when one of his aides and another of his appointees appeared to shut down approach lanes to the bridge as part of a political plot.

The firm submitted bills to the Attorney General’s Office that said in March it had 59 people working on the case and that they charged the state $2.49 million in fees. One lawyer two years out of law school billed for 342 hours that month — or an average of 11 hours every day in March. His taxpayer tab was almost $120,000.

 Friday’s disclosure means that the lawyers representing Christie’s office, his staff and those working for the legislative committee investigating the scandal have charged taxpayers $7.87 million, according to bills released so far.

 Gibson Dunn’s report was issued on March 26 and totaled about 350 pages, with 97 pages of appendices, more than 600 pages of exhibits and a document detailing interviews.

 Many key details were included not in the report but in the supplemental material. Transcripts of the 72 interviews Gibson Dunn conducted were not provided — instead they were summarized. And some key figures in the matter were not interviewed.

In addition to compiling the report, Gibson Dunn also represented some state employees who were forced to respond to bridge scandal-related subpoenas. In addition to the total for their work in March, $770,000 was added for work in April.

 The Attorney General’s Office on Friday also made public bills from 10 other law firms it has hired and many were paid for their work representing state employees who have been subpoenaed either by the U.S. attorney or by the legislative committee investigating the bridge scandal.

 Those 10 firms submitted bills for $673,000, according to documents released Friday.

 The state has declined to name the 23 employees being represented by outside attorneys and paid for by tax dollars.

 Reid Schar, the attorney hired by the Legislature’s Joint Select Committee on Investigation, has billed $687,000 through March to represent lawmakers in their investigation. Earlier in the investigation, Hackensack-based lawyer Leon Sokol was paid $40,000.

 Many law firms working on the scandal are billing well below their normal rate. In its agreement with the state, Gibson Dunn said it would charge $650 an hour, lower than its usual rate for clients. That number was then reduced further to $350.

 Gibson Dunn’s report was released in late March, and Christie has touted it as proof of his innocence. The scandal ballooned in January when The Record published emails from Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie’s deputy chief of staff. She sent the now infamous message “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” to David Wildstein, one of Christie’s political appointees at the Port Authority.

 Christie maintained that he had no knowledge of the lane closings beforehand and played no part in any possible political retaliation against Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat.

After the report was released, some said the document read like a text prepared by a defense attorney.

“It was a report that was done without ever interviewing the major characters in this drama and, in fact, never talking to anyone at the Port Authority,” state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, said on Friday. “I think any lawyer should be embarrassed to put their name on it.”

She added that she thought going forward, “Legal fees are on a downhill trend, not an uphill trend.”

As next month’s one-year anniversary of the bridge closing nears, there are multiple investigations looking into the Port Authority and the governor’s office. New Jersey’s federal prosecutor has convened a grand jury on the matter, the Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into how the Port Authority spent money on the Pulaski Skyway and the joint legislative committee is still active.