Report: Lawyers Hired by Christie Administration to Review 'Bridgegate' Clear Governor of Involvement
By Ian Bush
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A review due out soon clears Governor Christie of involvement in the Bridgegate scandal, according to a report in The New York Times. But the law firm behind the investigation was hired by the administration, and their findings come at taxpayer expense.
Despite the million-dollar minimum price tag, the Times reports the inquiry doesn't include interviews with several key players:
"Including Bridget Kelly, the deputy chief of staff who wrote one of the more infamous emails in the original release of emails -- the one that said 'time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.'"
Ben Dworkin heads the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University. He says the report will allow the governor to at least make the claim that 'there's no story, now can we move on with my agenda?'
"And there will certainly be plenty of skepticism, because this is a report commissioned by the governor's office about itself," Dworkin said.
The lead attorney says the governor allowed his own email and his iPhone to be searched as part of the thousands of other emails and documents they reviewed.
Besides Kelly, neither Christie's former campaign manager Bill Stepien nor former Port Authority administrator David Wildstein agreed to talk to the lawyers -- and Assemblyman John Wisinewski, the lead legislative investigator, calls the report flawed.