After ‘Bridgegate,’ not the election Christie had hoped for

MENDHAM TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) - New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had hoped to have dozens of cameras capturing him head to vote for himself as president, but he instead walked into his polling place Tuesday a few minutes after it opened without even inviting the press as his office has typically done.

Election Day for Christie comes on the heels of last week’s guilty verdicts of two of his former aides in a political revenge plot and the day after his first interview about the Bridgegate case, in which he defended himself and insisted he knew nothing about the plot and did not play any role in approving it.

“Even after all of the sensationalism, all the headlines, all the ink spilled on this, no person has ever testified, even the convicted felons haven’t testified, that we said to the governor this was a political act of retribution and (Christie said) this is OK,” Christie said.

Christie said in an interview with Charlie Rose that he has no recollection of any of his aides telling him about lane closures on the George Washington Bridge, which he called “one of the most abjectly stupid things I’ve ever seen.”

Bridget Kelly, Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, and Bill Baroni, an executive at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, were convicted of scheming with former Christie ally David Wildstein to punish a Democratic mayor for not endorsing Republican Christie when he ran for re-election in 2013. Wildstein pleaded guilty.

Testimony contradicted Christie’s statements about when he knew about the four days of gridlock at the base of the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee in September 2013.

Wildstein testified that Baroni told Christie about the traffic jam at a Sept. 11 memorial event in New York while the gridlock was in progress. He said Christie laughed and made a sarcastic joke when he learned of Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich’s distress over not getting his calls returned.

Kelly testified she told Christie about Sokolich’s concerns about political retaliation during the week of the traffic jams at the bridge, which connects New York and Fort Lee. She said Christie told her that it was a “Port Authority project, let Wildstein handle it.”

“Do you think for a second with all of the things that were said in that trial that if they had told me this was an act of political retribution that they wouldn’t have said it?” Christie said. “Of course they would have. They never did.”

Christie said that the jury confirmed what he thought on Jan. 9, 2014 - the day he fired Kelly after her “time for some traffic problems” were released - that Kelly, Baroni and Wildstein were responsible.

But Christie only fired Kelly publicly. Baroni testified that two of Christie’s aides asked him to resign, but Christie then insisted in December 2013 that Baroni’s resignation had nothing to do with the bridge plot. Even at the Jan. 9, 2014 news conference, Christie referenced Baroni’s testimony about the lane closures being part of a traffic study in his answers to six separate questions and maintained that his resignation had been planned in advance.

Christie also called Kelly’s testimony that he once threw a water bottle at her because he was mad a “complete fabrication”

At the time the scandal unfolded, Christie was considered a top presidential contender. Christie has said the scandal likely influenced Trump’s decision not to pick him as his running mate, but told Rose that you’d have to ask Trump exactly what role it played.

Christie is chairman of Trump’s transition team, in charge of hiring thousands of employees if he wins the presidency. Christie’s scheduled campaign stops for Trump on Saturday were canceled after the verdict.

Christie said that he’s now going to turn his attention to governing in his remaining 13 months in office.

“I’ve got lots of work to do. I’ve done lots, I’ve got lots more to do,” Christie said. “I’m going to go out the same way I came in: loud. Loud and tough and making changes.”