In December, the New Jersey State Assembly issued a subpoena to former Director of Interstate Capital Projects at the Port Authority David Wildstein, requesting all communications between the governor’s office and the Port Authority related to the controversial lane closures that turned the town of Fort Lee into a parking lot back in September. Today, 2,400 pages of those documents were released to the public.
New Jersey State Assembly Speaker John Wisniewski, who led the subpoena charge, seems to believe the most intriguing potential revelation in the documents is a fleeting reference to a meeting between Governor Christie and Port Authority Chairman David Samson, one week before Bridget Anne Kelly sent the order to cause “traffic problems” in Fort Lee.
By Wisniewski’s reasoning, Wildstein and his attorney were only supposed to submit documents specifically related to the lane closures. Therefore, by including a document that mentions a meeting between Samson and the Governor, Wildstein is implying that said meeting was in some way related to the closures. The question is: how?
It’s a bit of a stretch, but it seems to be the closest the State Democrats have come to tying Christie directly to the plot against Fort Lee.
You can 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.