[VIDEO] Did Bully Chris Christie Close the G.W. Bridge Out Of Spite? Port Authority Inspector General Investigating
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s Inspector General formally launched an investigation Tuesday into the closure of several local lanes at the George Washington Bridge in September, which caused major traffic jams. The investigation was confirmed by Michael Nestor, the office’s director of investigations.
And New Jersey state lawmakers are weighing their next step into their investigation into the closures, one day after the Port Authority’s executive director undercut the agency’s official explanation for the traffic jams.
Fort Lee, New Jersey, was effectively turned into a giant parking lot on the first day of school in September, after the Port Authority closed two of the three lanes leading from the community to the George Washington Bridge. The Christie administration later defended the move, saying it was part of a “traffic study,” though we now know there was no study.
So why cause the massive congestion on purpose? New Jersey Democrats allege the Christie administration was punishing Fort Lee’s Democratic mayor for refusing to endorse the governor’s re-election campaign. And while that seems hard to believe – Christie was cruising to an easy win, anyway – the burgeoning controversy is increasingly difficult to dismiss.
[O]n Friday, the man who ordered the closings – a high school friend of the governor’s who was a small-town mayor and the founder of an anonymous political blog before Mr. Christie’s appointee created a job for him at the Port Authority – resigned, saying the issue had become “a distraction.”
And testifying under subpoena in Trenton on Monday, bridge workers described Mr. Christie’s associates’ ordering the closings, and called the different maneuvers “unprecedented,” “odd” and “wrong.” There was, they said, no study.
Mr. Christie’s associates at the Port Authority, they said, ordered bridge workers to shut down the lanes with three days’ notice despite warnings that it would cause havoc, and that changes of this magnitude typically took years of planning. They were instructed not to tell anyone — not the news media, not Fort Lee, not even the Port Authority’s executive director, who is an appointee of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, they said. They protested, but went along, they said, because they feared retribution.