Witness Says Christie Aide Asked Her to Delete Email About Lane Closings

NEWARK — As the scandal over the lane closings at the George Washington Bridge mushroomed in December 2013, Bridget Anne Kelly called a co-worker one evening in a panic.

Witness Says Christie Aide Asked Her to Delete Email About Lane Closings 07BRIDGEGATE2-master768

Witness Says Christie Aide Asked Her to Delete Email About Lane Closings 07BRIDGEGATE2-master768

“You know, Christina, if someone tells me something is O.K., who am I to question it?” she asked.
Then, according to testimony in United States District Court here from the co-worker, Christina Renna, Ms. Kelly asked her to delete an email that had been written three months earlier, when the lane closings were causing a catastrophic traffic jam in Fort Lee, N.J. Prosecutors say the closings were planned by Ms. Kelly and two other senior aides to Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey as a punishment of the town’s mayor after he declined to endorse Mr. Christie for re-election.
The email that September day documented a call from the mayor to a young staff member in the governor’s office, in which the mayor complained about safety hazards from the shutdowns and said he suspected that they were “government retribution.”
Ms. Kelly, a deputy chief of staff to Mr. Christie, had received the email from Ms. Renna and replied, “Good.”
Ms. Renna testified that she did not delete the email until the next day, during a news conference that Mr. Christie, a Republican, held to announce the resignations of two officials at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the bridge. Mr. Christie told reporters there that neither his campaign manager, Bill Stepien, nor anyone on his senior staff knew anything about a punitive motive behind the closings, calling the whole episode overblown.
Ms. Renna texted another former co-worker, Peter Sheridan, during the news conference, saying: “Are you listening? He just flat-out lied about senior staff and Stepien not being involved.” The Port Authority officials had been served with subpoenas that day. If emails surfaced as a result, Ms. Renna wrote to Mr. Sheridan, “it could be bad.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/07/nyregion/ex-christie-staff-member-says-she-was-asked-to-delete-email-about-lane-closings.html

Witness Says Christie Aide Asked Her to Delete Email About Lane Closings

Witness Says Christie Aide Asked Her to Delete Email About Lane Closings

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