Update! Feds meet with attorney assisting legislative investigation/ Was Wildstein advised to lie? [View all]

[ProSense]

Update! Feds meet with attorney assisting legislative investigation/ Was Wildstein advised to lie?

by Onomastic

I like people who make sure all the "i's" are dotted and the "t's" crossed, don't you? Especially when it comes to investigating Governor Christie and his administration.

Federal prosecutors met on Friday with the attorney assisting with a legislative investigation into the George Washington Bridge lane closures, the attorney said Saturday, while pledging to avoid interfering with the criminal probe.

"I met with the US Attorney's Office on Friday," special counsel Reid Schar said in a statement. "Based on the meeting, I am comfortable that the Committee's investigation may continue. As we proceed we will be mindful of the need to avoid taking steps that could inappropriately impede any investigation the U.S. Attorney's Office may be conducting."

The meeting fell on the same day that a lawyer for David Wildstein, a former Christie ally, released a letter claiming there was evidence that Christie knew about the lane closures as they were happening in September. Christie has said he didn't know about the closures until after they were reversed.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/GWB_scandal_Federal_prosecutors_.html

Ah yes, Wildstein attorney Alan Zegas' letter to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, better know as Governor Christie's patronage pit and slush fund.

A couple things to note here. First of all, according to Scott Raab, New Jersey resident and Esquire writer at large who has covered the Port Authority for years, Wildstein was Christie's enforcer and spy at the Port Authority. He was the Governor's "New Jersey muscle."

And now Christie's enforcer is threatening to spill the beans on Christie and the Port Authority he controlled.

In today's Esquire piece, Raab lays out the history of Christie's henchmen at the Port Authority and just why Zegas' letter and what it alludes too holds the key to Christie's future.

...To the extent there is any smoking gun here -- and Christie’s media people have already responded that the Zegas letter ‘confirms what the Governor has said all along’ -- it has been fired against the Port Authority. Zegas’s between-the-lines suggestion that the Port’s own lawyer essentially advised Wildstein to give false testimony, is stunning, and speaks to a corruption far more fundamental -- and far more dangerous -- than any discrete incident of conflict and criminality.

The Zegas letter also speaks, indirectly, to U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, whose office is conducting its own investigation -- and has no comment on the letter. Will Fishman offer Wildstein immunity from criminal prosecution in exchange for cooperation? Will Fishman, an Obama appointee, play hardball?

Clearly, Wildstein will -- he truly has no other choice, unless he wants to be the fall guy. As for Christie, he’s a dead man waddling, with nothing left to lose. The governor’s embrace of the Zegas letter is frankly delusional: Chris Christie ran the Port Authority, and looted it, too. From the beginning, his only hope was to portray himself as the innocent victim of folks he trusted. This much is true: He trusted them. Not because they were honest or interested in serving the public good, but because they were not. They were Chris Christie’s chosen thugs, and not for nothing.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/wildstein-christie

Hubris is weaving an interesting web for Christie. How coincidental can it be that on the same day Zegas' letter was released, Federal Prosecutors met "with the attorney assisting with a legislative investigation into the George Washington Bridge lane closures?"

Secondly, popcorn may not be nearly substantial enough. Time for good chocolate, wine, cheese, and Irish Whiskey. Appropriate musical interludes would be good too.

- more -

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/01/1274324/--GWB-scandal-Federal-prosecutors-meet-with-attorney-assisting-legislative-investigation

Christie Hits Back: Bridge Official Will 'Say Anything To Save' Himself
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024427736