If you thought Chris Cristie’s George Washington Bridge scandal was the most bizarre career killer the arrogant Governor had up his sleeve, hold on to something! Gov. Christie gives goodie bags to special cronies – but they aren’t exactly free, and they aren’t his to give.
Gov. Christie has been gifting pieces of salvaged metal from The World Trade Center, as part of ‘a political goodie bag’ in exchange for endorsements. We are speaking of all of the wreckage from metal girders to who-knows-what was hauled away from the site.
There is a monstrous (and previously secret) cache of all of the 9/11 wreckage and relics in Hangar 17 at JFK. Christie’s ‘in’ with the Port Authority proved helpful in his illegal endeavor (and others) as the Port Authority of New York and of New Jersey were charged with keeping the sacred items hidden. There is an exception if a country wants to commemorate 9/11, and can present a compelling case, they may be awarded a small token.
I hope you’re still with me, because it really gets interesting now.
Enter Chris Christie and his list of 100 mayors whom Cristie’s team was wooing in his re-election campaign. The Times pictured a Christie appointee giving a piece of metal to Secaucus, NJ Mayor Michael Gonnelli. Gonnelli rated in the top 20 of the above mentioned list.
Rachel Maddow reasons that the list runs counter to a popular theory regarding the August 2013 lane closures on the George Washington Bridge and Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich (D) the target. You see, Sokolich was ranked No. 45 on the list.
“Seriously, though?” Maddow asked. “Think about that for a second: You close down access to the world’s busiest bridge for number 45 on your list? You gridlock a town for five days for the guy who’s only number 45 on your list of priorities?
Seriously? What does that mean they did if number 35 failed to endorse? Would that be nuclear?”
Looks like we possibly dodged world devastation when Christie fumbled and pulled his own grenade pin. He was looking like the GOP version of presidential material for a while.
This is only the tip of the iceberg. Read on to discover how Christie has been using the incestuous Port Authority as a tool, in oh-so-many ways, long before the bridge scandal was a gleam in his eye.
Turning wreckage of the twin towers into politically motivated gifts before Mr. Christie’s 2013 re-election was only one example. The authority became a means to reward friends (or hire them) and punish adversaries, and a bank to be used when Mr. Christie sought to avoid raising taxes. Major policy initiatives, such as instituting a large toll and fare increase in 2011, were treated like political campaigns to burnish the governor’s image.These maneuvers emboldened the Christie team, former Port Authority colleagues say, to close down the lanes on the world’s busiest bridge — ensnaring them in state and federal investigations. Mr. Christie’s allies at the agency were public, even proud, about their mandate to reshape the agency.
Shortly after he was hired by Mr. Baroni to be director of interstate capital projects, David Wildstein walked into a colleague’s office at the agency’s headquarters on Park Avenue South in Manhattan and gestured toward the window. “You know, that used to be Tammany Hall,” he said, referring to the New York Film Academy below on East 17th Street, according to a person who witnessed the scene. “That’s the seat of all corruption in New York.”
Waiting a beat, he added, “And the Port Authority is right here.”