New Jersey governor Chris Christie should forget about any future occupation of Pennsylvania Avenue and worry about other Pennsylvania addresses—like the Federal Prison in Allenwood.
Christie has now doubled down on his patently bogus who-me? denials over the George Washington Bridge shutdown scandal, which could have gotten him through a news cycle or two if the affair were less egregious. Now he’s stuck with his lies, and the details are going to start trickling out from a raft of investigations with clear criminal potential. There is likely to be sworn testimony from the principals, and lying under oath remains a felony. Christie will have to lawyer up and start suffering from severe memory lapses, all the while wondering who among his inner circle, now tossed under the express lane busses, will decide to imitate the boss and save his or her own skin.
Stories are pouring out about other New Jersey mayors who suffered personalized retribution from Christie, further digging a large hole around his unbelievable story. There’s the Hoboken mayor who couldn’t get money to protect the city from another Hurricane Sandy, the Elizabeth mayor whose motor vehicles office was closed down, and most appalling, the former New Jersey governor whose wife’s post-partum depression program was systematically defunded—all out of petty spite.
It is now clear to one and all that this is how Christie operates and that the GW Bridge debacle has his fingerprints all over it. If he sticks with his flimsy excuses, he courts charges; if he backtracks, he looks even guiltier. Perhaps if he completely rebrands himself, pushes tons of state money at everyone he’s alienated and promises to play well with others, he can get to the end of his term without trying on an XXL orange jumpsuit. In any case Christie will soon be ‘spending more time with his family.’
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