Indictments in Bridge Scandal

Indictments May Be Near in George Washington Bridge Scandal

By KATE ZERNIKE

It has been falsely predicted many times in the last year, but now it seems to be true: The federal investigation into the lane closings at the George Washington Bridge appears to be coming to a head, with an announcement of indictments as early as next week.

In recent weeks, people close to the case say, federal investigators have interviewed members of the Borough Council in Fort Lee, N.J., the town gridlocked when its three lanes leading to the bridge were narrowed to one for several days in September 2013 — a move at first bewildering, and later revealed to be the result of orders from aides and allies of Gov. Chris Christie.

The interviews were said to be largely perfunctory, the kind of t-crossing that investigators would do before wrapping up.

Subpoenas have made it clear that the inquiry has gone beyond the lane closings to include possible conflicts of interest and bribery. But the United States attorney for New Jersey, Paul J. Fishman, has said little about it, beyond that any news reports purporting to say what he was doing were “most likely wrong.”

His silence has meant 15 months of suspense and speculation. Hearings by a special investigative committee of the State Legislature and a report by Mr. Christie’s own lawyers provided more questions and contradictions than they did answers to the most basic question: What prompted a deputy chief of staff to the governor, a Republican, to send a note calling for “some traffic problems in Fort Lee”?

Mr. Christie’s political ambitions wait on Mr. Fishman. As the investigation has dragged on, the governor has pushed past the dates he set for a decision on whether to run for president in 2016.

While Mr. Christie says he was blindsided by rogue aides, the scandal has damaged his once-Teflon finish, as well as his poll numbers among Republican primary voters and his constituents. Even if the investigation produces no legal problems for Mr. Christie, any indictments will almost certainly add to his political challenges.

People close to the case say prosecutors are likely to bring charges based on a rarely used provision of a fraud statute, under which they would argue that Mr. Christie’s associates used the bridge, or the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs it, for a purpose other than its intended one. In the case of the bridge, the closings were apparently meant to punish Mayor Mark Sokolich of Fort Lee, a Democrat, after he declined to endorse the governor’s re-election bid in 2013.

What is less certain is whether prosecutors will find crimes in the other ways Mr. Christie used his powers in the service of political ambition. He used Port Authority money to fill holes in his budget; his lieutenants doled out flags and steel from the remnants of the World Trade Center to woo mayors whose endorsements they sought. An office of “intergovernmental affairs” worked to cultivate endorsements, all in the hopes that the governor could use a huge winning margin to argue that he was the Republican most likely to win the White House in 2016.

Continue reading the main story Investigators months ago subpoenaed records from officials at the authority and Mr. Christie’s 2013 campaign regarding Jersey City, where Christie administration officials canceled a day’s worth of meetings that had been set up with the city’s new mayor after he told the campaign that he would endorse the governor’s opponent. Those records could be used to establish a pattern of punishing local officials.

Investigators have also questioned potential witnesses about efforts by the Christie administration to cover up the political motives behind the lane closings, explaining them as a traffic study.

Then there is the question of charges against David Samson, Mr. Christie’s longtime confidant and his handpicked chairman of the Port Authority board, whose law firm is among the most politically connected in the state. (On Tuesday, Mr. Samson announced that he would retire, saying it was “time for new leaders to transition the firm to the future.”)

Perhaps the most potent issue is whether Mr. Samson pressured United Airlines, as part of its negotiations regarding service at Newark Liberty International Airport, to reinstate a once-weekly flight to the airport closest to his weekend home in South Carolina. That flight was canceled after Mr. Samson resigned in March 2014; investigators have subpoenaed both the authority and the airline.

Prosecutors have also been looking into allegations by the mayor of Hoboken that the Christie administration withheld relief money after Hurricane Sandy, to pressure her to approve a project by a developer represented by Mr. Samson’s firm.

If indictments touch only the people Mr. Christie dismissed from his orbit because of the scandal, he is likely to argue that the federal inquiry affirms his version of the events, and that he made the necessary corrections.

Mr. Christie might make the same argument about David Wildstein, the Port Authority official who received the email from Ms. Kelly and ordered bridge workers to close the lanes, and Bill Baroni, the deputy executive director at the authority, who testified before the Legislature that the closings were part of a traffic study — an argument discredited by bridge officials two weeks later. Mr. Baroni and Mr. Wildstein resigned before the scandal erupted in January 2014; Mr. Christie bathed them in praise and said their departures had nothing to do with the closings.

If Mr. Samson is indicted, it will be harder for Mr. Christie to shake the taint of corruption. And the details that come out of any indictment or trials could reinforce what critics have long said of him: that he fostered a culture in which political bullying was acceptable if not encouraged; that whether or not he planned the lane closings or knew about them as they happened, it was the kind of caper his staff knew would please him.

Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story Testimony to the Legislature made clear that the Christie administration and the Port Authority purposely ignored Mr. Sokolich’s calls, emails and texts during the closings inquiring whether they were intended to punish him. It was only by mistake that a staff member in Mr. Christie’s office picked up a call from Mr. Sokolich. He relayed the mayor’s complaints to his boss, who relayed them to Ms. Kelly in an email that indicated that the administration had been trying to ignore the mayor.

The governor’s chief of staff, Kevin O’Dowd, testified at a legislative hearing in June that he showed Mr. Christie the email in December 2013. Mr. Christie had appeared at a news conference minutes after seeing the email and said his staff had assured him that none of them knew anything about the closings.

Other contradictions have emerged.

Mr. Christie and Mr. O’Dowd told lawyers conducting the internal investigation that the governor had asked his chief counsel in October 2013 to investigate the closings, and that the counsel, Charles McKenna, had reported back that Port Authority officials said they were part of a traffic study. Mr. McKenna told those lawyers that he first heard the traffic study line in late November.

Ms. Kelly, meanwhile, has been publicly silent for 15 months. But in a rare statement in May, her lawyer alluded to a wider network involved. “Anyone who thinks they are going to rewrite history and make Ms. Kelly a scapegoat,” he wrote, “is gravely mistaken.”