Christie Crime Digest-Volume IV

[Laxman]

120. Has Chris Christie Taken Down The Republican Party....

in New Jersey for a generation? I don't know about that. There are still lots of really conservative areas of the state where they will hide out waiting, but this is a very interesting look at what the fallout just might be. An excellent analysis by Matt Freidman:

Chris Christie's epic collapse

When Donald Trump made his strange trip to a Hindu anti-terrorism rally in Edison, New Jersey, Chris Christie — the governor who is heading Trump’s transition team — was noticeably absent. Garden State leaders could only wonder whether Christie was laying low because of the unpopular presidential nominee's hot-mic comments about women, or because of his own deepening problems stemming from the Bridgegate scandal.

Such is the condition of Christie’s career. Once a GOP star, his fortunes have plummeted since the high point of his landslide re-election in 2013, and now look to be nearing rock-bottom as an aide’s trial leads to embarrassing revelations about his possible complicity in the notorious lane closures at the George Washington Bridge.

Budget and infrastructure setbacks have wrecked his narrative of a renewed New Jersey.

His failed presidential bid made him a punchline in his deep-blue home state, and his subsequent embrace of Trump has only made things worse.

Christie is now in the awkward position of trying to distance himself from the candidate, even as he reportedly remains a key behind-the-scenes player. Since Trump’s taped comments about groping women surfaced, Christie has not appeared publicly for Trump, and pointedly said, when asked about Trump's defiant responses to allegations of sexual harassment, that he could only answer for his own comments as a surrogate.

And looming over everything is the sordid election-season revenge plot known as Bridgegate, which has been thrust back into the headlines in recent weeks by the trial of two of Christie’s former subordinates — and which has gone even worse for the governor than generally expected.

One of the defendants, former Christie deputy chief of staff Bridget Kelly, not only painted the governor as a willing accomplice in the plan to close lanes to the George Washington Bridge, but as a bully who threw a water bottle at her because he didn’t like the format of an event she was planning. (She testified that he said, “What do you think I am, a fucking game show host?”)

Later, Christie’s chief strategist, Mike DuHaime, testified that he told Christie that Kelly and then-Deputy Chief of Staff Bill Stepien had knowledge of the lane closures at a time when Christie told the New Jersey press his staff were not involved.

It’s been enough to put a damper on whatever remaining hopes Christie might have had for a job in a Trump administration. As Rutgers political science professor Ross K. Baker said to POLITICO even before the recent revelations, Bridgegate has made him “the most improbable nominee to any cabinet post.”

Meanwhile, the governor appears to be taking his party down with him....

Read the whole thing here: http://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2016/10/bridgegate-christies-parting-gift-to-new-jersey-republicans-106757