Chris Christie.
Chris Christie, the early front-runner for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, was facing a crisis yesterday after emails appeared to show senior aides conspired to inflict an extraordinary act of revenge against the town of a political foe.
The emails detailed how advisers to the New Jersey Governor brought traffic
gridlock to the town of Fort Lee after its Mayor Mark Sokolich had refused to endorse his re-election campaign last year. The revelations left Christie, a Republican star who claims a rare ability to forge bipartisan co-operation, open to charges of political bullying in his leadership of the "Soprano state".
Christie, 51, had previously denied he or his close aides were behind the mysterious closure of access roads to the George Washington bridge, which links New Jersey with New York, in September. Yesterday an "outraged and deeply saddened" Christie said he was misled by an aide. He denied any involvement. The emails do not directly implicate him.
The throttling of traffic to the busiest bridge in the world caused four days of gridlock in Fort Lee. Police said the traffic jams caused by the lane closures restricted access for ambulances and even hindered the search for a missing 4-year-old, who was eventually found.
Yet the emails, which were subpoenaed by an inquiry, showed the Governor's senior aides directly ordering the lane closures - and celebrating the resulting jams that caused misery for thousands of drivers. "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee," Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie's deputy chief of staff, wrote to David Wildstein, a senior Christie appointee at the port authority. "Got it," he said.