Fat Man Sings...

Emails appear to show Christie was told about political activities of his office

By Matt Friedman and Ryan Hutchins

Gov. Chris Christie was told that a taxpayer-funded office in his administration had put a Democratic mayor “in the end zone” just weeks before Christie received his endorsement, according to emails released this week.

In the emails, then-Christie aide Bill Stepien sought to arrange meetings between the governor and the Democratic mayors of Belleville and Orange at the request of one of Christie’s top Democratic allies, Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo.

“IGA has already put the mayor of Belleville in the end zone, but if this helps with Joe D, then I’m all for it,” Stepien wrote to Christie in an April 23, 2013, email.

IGA refers to the Christie administration’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, which Stepien led until being tapped as Christie re-election campaign manager that same month.

The emails are significant because they appear to show the governor being informed directly that a public office under his charge was engaging in political activities, and may undercut a claim made in a report commissioned by the Christie administration in the wake of the Bridgegate scandal: That the IGA only became a taxpayer-funded political tool under the direction of Bridgegate defendant Bridget Kelly after Stepien had left to run Christie’s re-election campaign.

The emails were attached to a defense filing in the George Washington Bridge lane closure case and used to bolster arguments made by defendant Bill Baroni about why he should be given access to the governor’s cell phone records, text messages and emails.

Christie met with Belleville Mayor Raymond Kimble the day after Stepien sent him the email. It’s not clear if Christie also met Orange Mayor Dwayne Warren. Warren did not respond to a request for comment.

“It’s certain that I’m going to endorse Gov. Christie,” Kimble told The Star-Ledger about a week after their meeting. “I think the governor is going to help the town of Belleville with certain projects we need.”

About six weeks after the email, Kimble and Warren endorsed the Republican governor for re-election, along with Divincenzo and many other Essex County Democratic mayors and clergy members.

An age-restricted affordable housing project in Belleville was approved for $6 million in zero and low-interest loans made possible by Hurricane Sandy recovery dollars, even though Belleville was left largely unscathed by the 2012 storm. That sum was later increased to $10 million. Two projects in Orange, which was similarly spared by the storm, would also later receive funding, according to The Star-Ledger.

The governor’s office did not respond to several emails and a phone message seeking comment. An aide who answered the phone in the governor's press office and was asked to connect a reporter with spokesman Brian Murray put the call on hold for about two minutes before saying: “He’s got your email and they’re going to respond if they feel like it’s something they can do.”

The Office of Intergovernmental Affairs was disbanded after the Bridgegate scandal exposed how it had been used as a political tool to secure endorsements for the governor. A controversial report from the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher laid the blame for the IGA’s conduct squarely on Kelly, who’s now a defendant charged with orchestrating lane closures on the George Washington Bridge as an act of political retribution against Fort Lee’s Democratic mayor for not endorsing Christie.

“[The IGA] appeared to have functioned very effectively during the first three years of the Governor’s first term, both in terms of responsiveness and non-partisanship,” the Gibson Dunn report reads. “But then, during the Governor’s re-election year, under Kelly’s stewardship, there was aberrational behavior at Kelly’s direction. While this aberrational conduct was isolated, it has led to misunderstandings that have created appearance issues for IGA going forward.”

But the Stepien email was dated April 23 — just as the agency was, or was about to, transition from Stepien to Kelly’s leadership. A spokesman for Christie did not respond to a question about what specific day Stepien left the office. But news that Stepien “will move over” to from the office to act as campaign manager was first published by PolitickerNJ.com on April 29.

Because the email addresses of both Stepien and Christie are blacked out in the emails, it’s not clear if they were sent from personal or government accounts.

“The notion that the IGA put anybody in the end zone, unless IGA’s job was to get them Rutgers tickets, is just outrageous,” said Assemblyman John Wisniewski, who led the legislative inquiry into Bridgegate. “It shows what we all suspected, and what we’ve ready implied, that the governor’s IGA office was really a very thin cover for the campaign.”

A few days before Kimble endorsed him at a groundbreaking ceremony for the Sandy-funded affordable housing complex in Belleville that will provide housing for the elderly, Christie said he personally pushed for the project.

The Christie administration said the purpose of the funds that went to the projects were to replenish New Jersey’s housing supply more than to provide immediate homes to displaced Sandy victims.

Two other emails from Stepien to Christie in April 2013 discussed courting endorsements from mayors and labor unions, but do not specifically mention the IGA.

In one, dated April 7, 2013, Stepien told Christie about an arranged meeting with a group of 25 mayors at the governor’s mansion, including Democratic mayors “who we continue to court” and GOP mayors “who require constant maintenance.”

In an April 25, 2013 ,email, Stepien told Christie that as long as Senate President Stephen Sweeney isn’t “successful in his continued attempt to block it,” he should “expect the Cement Masons to endorse you today.”

“We should discuss how best to reward these guys, the Pipefitters and the Engineers, all of which supported you publicly without the benefit of interaction with you,” Stepien wrote.