Christie Crime Digest-Volume IV

[Laxman]

23. The Cover Stories....

are starting to fall apart already.

At Bridgegate trial, Fort Lee mayor tells of wooing by Christie campaign

For nearly a year, they courted Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich.

There were tickets to New York Giants games at the Governor's Box at MetLife Stadium. Private tours at Ground Zero for visiting relatives. An invite to a taping of MSNBC's Morning Joe at Fort Lee High School. A personal gift from the governor of an American flag that had flown over the World Trade Center site.

And despite assertions by Gov. Chris Christie in the aftermath of the Bridgegate scandal that the mayor "was not on my radar screen," and that he had never heard Sokolich's name "until all this stuff happened," there had been a private lunch with the governor at Drumthwacket, the governor's mansion in Princeton.

"Absolutely I went," Sokolich testified on Tuesday. "That's a bucket list item for a small town mayor—to have lunch with the governor."

Then, the governor's Office of Intergovernmental Affairs began talking about an endorsement. The mayor said they pointed to other Democrats willing to back the Republican governor. They asked him if he would be comfortable expressing his support. And when he finally said no, he woke up one morning to find Fort Lee in absolute and total gridlock.

"It was completely stopped," the mayor said of the traffic just outside his driveway. "It was concrete gridlock."

Sokolich said he long had a good relationship with Baroni, meeting him soon after the former state senator was named by Christie as the Port Authority's top New Jersey official.

"Bill was always responsive," he testified.

Baroni had told him he would always be there to help him, and to never hesitate calling if he had concerns. The Port Authority donated $5,000 to the Fort Lee Fire Department. It helped underwrite the cost of shuttle busses to take commuters to the Hudson River ferry at Edgewater.

And there were personal favors. When cousins visiting from Croatia sought to visit Ground Zero, Sokolich called Baroni and the Port Authority executive made it happen

"We met David Wildstein," said Sokolich, remembering the tour. Wildstein even pointed out the memorial panels at Ground Zero where those from Fort Lee were listed. But he also recalled an off-key moment.

"So you're the guy we have to be nice to. I have to be nice to you I'm told," Wildstein told him. "He said that multiple times in the first minutes I met him. It struck me as odd."

The mayor, as he was questioned by assistant U.S. attorney Vikas Khanna, said there were other favors as well, as members of the governor's Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, or IGA, reached out with invitations to football games, to the governor's budget address at the State House, and to Christmas parties at Drumthwacket.

In the summer of 2012, he said Matt Mowers, then an IGA staffer, began broaching the subject of endorsing the governor.

"Ultimately that was all they were talking about," he said, making references to public endorsements by Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo, a Democratic power broker, as well as others.

Read the rest here: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2016/09/the_bridgegate_trial_a_failed_courtship_and_then_t_1.html#incart_river_home