Christie's Political Appointee and Childhood Friend Pleads the 5th

This is getting real interesting. The drip, drip, drip of revelations will lead somewhere and my guess is that it will lead to someone rolling over on Christie himself. Wanna bet?

Christie appointee pleads the Fifth before state committee in bridge fiasco

An appointee of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at the center of an apparent plan to engineer a monster traffic jam as an act of political payback was held in contempt Thursday after he refused to answer questions from state lawmakers.
The appointee, David Wildstein, invoked the Fifth Amendment, which offers protection against self-incrimination.
“On the advice of counsel, I assert my right to remain silent,” he said repeatedly at the hearing, convened by the transportation committee of the state Assembly.
The committee is investigating why lanes that funnel traffic from Fort Lee, N.J., to the George Washington Bridge were closed in September, resulting in days of gridlock. Emails published Wednesday by The Record newspaper and other news organizations show Wildstein mocking concerns that school buses were stuck in the mess.
Assemblyman John Wisniewski, the Democrat who chairs the committee, disputed that Wildstein had the right under state law to decline to answer questions. The committee voted to hold him in contempt, a misdemeanor.
The chairman asked Wildstein questions anyway — including about an email from Christie’s deputy chief of staff to Wildstein last August that said: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”
Wildstein declined to answer every time, saying either himself or through his lawyer that he had a constitutional right not to.
Wildstein, who went to high school with Christie, was director of interstate capital projects for the Port Authority, the agency that runs the bridge. He resigned in December, saying that growing questions about the traffic jam had become a distraction.
The mayor of Fort Lee, Mark Sokolich, a Democrat, had declined to endorse Christie, who is believed to be considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 and who has crafted an image of transcending partisan politics.
In one email published Wednesday, Wildstein refers to the mayor, who is of Croatian descent, as “this little Serbian.”
Christie, at a press conference Thursday morning, apologized to the people of New Jersey and said he was embarrassed by his staff. He fired a top aide, Bridget Kelly, and said that she had lied to him about the bridge fiasco.
He also played down his relationship with Wildstein and said that they were not friends in high school.
Earlier in the day, Wildstein lost a bid in court to avoid testifying before the state committee. His lawyers had argued that the committee was exceeding its authority, that Wisniewski had a conflict of interest, and that there were questions about the validity of Wisniewski’s signature on subpoena papers.
At the hearing, one assemblyman, Thomas Giblin, went out of his way to praise Wildstein’s reputation and encouraged him not to be a “fall guy.”
“You deserve better,” Giblin said. “You have a reputation that precedes you here today, and I think you want to build on that reputation by being candidate with this committee. All we’re looking for is some type of solutions and answers.”

 

I'll take that bet!

Christie did kNot know ahead of time.

It's known as Plausible Deniability. Didn't eWe see Independence Day?

Ribbit

 

Ps: I've done it before. It saves the public person from embarrassment.

 

Christie has a well-documented history of using his office for political pay-back against political foes, the media, and anyone else that crossed him. I suspect that this latest example will just amount to another instance of that behavior.

A leopard can not change his spots now can he?

 

But you have to prove it first!

You can't dew like the government did with Whitey and use hearsay to convict Christie with. Only the government can get away with that.

Ribbit

 

Ah! You are exactly right. He is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. That is a lesson I'd like to see out Right-wingers in this forum learn. They seem to need no proof of Obama's guilt in any instance, their accusation is enough and the only thing left in their opinion is how the sentence will be carried out. Why to they hate due process or as you would put it, "dew process"?

That is also why I am having so much fun with this Christie scandal. Here we have the actual culprits caught red-handed with only one domino, Christie himself, left to fall. That was how it worked with Nixon. These dumb Right-wingers think that merely having an A-hole like Issa make accusations is all the proof they need when it comes to Democrats. I'm still waiting for any proof to show up of wrong doing against Obama, Clinton, Holder, Rice, etc....and I wait and I wait. When actual proof shows up of wrong-doing like in the Christie scandal, these same Right-wingers turn a blind eye. You kind of get the idea that they really don't care about corruption in the least but might just be partisan idiots. Ya think?

 

Actually, I see the current situation as a personal vendetta, orchestrated by one of Christie's staff and that's all. That happens!

From there, as I see it, Gov Christie did not know about the staff member being involved and Gov Christie has handled it properly and the staff member that took the 5th, they have that right and to use that against them, is not upholding the Constitution, it's upholding Opinion and that's what's usually being held up high by most Yeasayers, Neysayers, and even Hearsayers.

Stick with the facts, Dano.

Ribbit

 

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But Christie has to be innocent, right? Based on moron joe's own line of reasoning, if the guy in charge says something it has to be true. PERIOD! Isn't that right, moron joe? Isn't this exactly (even with the same emphasis) how you defended testimony in the Benghazi scandal?

 

It's all old school politics used by those without ideas and ideals. We had one governor who had a model of a road grader in his office. He would call state representative into his office, show it off, and tell them in no uncertain term, that if they ever want to see one of these working in their districts, then they better damn well get with the plan. Nothing new or respectable here.

 

Christie IS innocent at this point? No argument here. Now if you allow an actual investigation and let the chips fall where they may just like they have in the investigation of Benghazi, all of them. Instead of believing the results of all of the investigations and the fact that no charges have been filed against anyone involved, you continue to assert guilt even after countless investigations. What kind of stupidity is that? You have to be a total moron, and you are, to still see guilt when none has been produced. Questions are not proof of guilt. Lots of questions, no proof of anything. IDIOT!

 

Cut and paste. Aren't you supposed to be against that?

 

"A Patriot to the Politics of government is a Traitor to the People of the World." - Old Toad Proverb

Love demanded is never love earned and in a Republican form of government, that government is forbidden from ever demanding Love so why is a parent any different?

I see parenting controls our Legislature and they think they are We the People's parents now?

Say it ain't sew?

The French were right ... .. .

Ribbit