Christie’s ‘Enforcer’ Says New Jersey Bridge Closure Was His Idea
- Wildstein implicates Trump aide, Port Authority commissioner
- Christie aide Kelly ‘pleased’ to hear of traffic, jury told
On the first day that a politically motivated traffic jam crippled a New Jersey borough next to the George Washington Bridge in September 2013, Governor Chris Christie’s “enforcer” drove to inspect the gridlock, he testified. Then he went to have breakfast at a diner.
David Wildstein, a former Christie appointee at the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, recounted his satisfaction as he watched the mushrooming traffic jams on closed-circuit cameras and then in a police cruiser while thousands of motorists clogged the streets of Fort Lee, New Jersey. Wildstein told federal court jurors in Newark Monday that he orchestrated the jam to punish Fort Lee’s mayor for refusing to endorse Christie’s re-election bid in 2013, and it was timed for the first day of school to maximize the upheaval.