New Jersey Bridge Scandal Suddenly Gets Worse For Chris Christie

—By Kevin Drum

| Wed Dec. 18, 2013 10:54 PM GMT

 

Last week I mentioned the peculiar story of David Wildstein, the #2 guy at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, who closed down several lanes of the George Washington Bridge last October in apparent retaliation against the mayor of Fort Lee for not supporting Chris Christie's reelection campaign. It all seemed pretty sleazy, but I also figured it was "vanishingly unlikely" that Christie himself had anything to do with this. It was embarrassing for him, but that was all.
Today, that may have changed:

Bill Baroni and David Wildstein, former executives at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, have sought outside counsel amid an investigation into why traffic lanes leading to the nation's busiest bridge were closed, the documents showed.
....Mr. Wildstein recently hired Alan L. Zegas, a criminal lawyer from Chatham, N.J., to represent him, according to an email sent from Mr. Zegas to the state Legislature Tuesday....Mr. Baroni retained Michael Himmel, of Lowenstein Sandler LLP. Mr. Himmel works at the firm's New York City and Roseland, N.J. offices, and specializes in white collar crime, according to his biography.

Read Mark Kleiman for more on just why this is such bad news for Christie. This scandal is starting to look like it has more legs than I thought.

Kevin Drum

Political Blogger

Kevin Drum is a political blogger for Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. RSS | Twitter