"I'm glad he's paying attention," Bridget Anne Kelly said of Christie's decision to come to Washington.
WASHINGTON — United States Supreme Court justices on both the court's conservative and liberal wings today signaled that they harbored major questions about the validity of the federal convictions of two close aides to former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in the Bridgegate case.
The gridlock across Fort Lee's narrow streets leading to the George Washington Bridge during portions of five days in September 2013 that became known as the Bridgegate plot was meant to punish the borough’s Democratic mayor, Mark Sokolich, for his refusal to endorse the re-election of Christie, a Republican.The plan backfired, however.
"Once again," Roth said,"the government is trying to use the open-ended federal fraud statutes to enforce honest government at the state and local levels."What NJ lawmakers failed to get done: Legal weed, plastic bag ban, tax breaks and more Besides Associate Justices Kagan, Breyer and Alito, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, another member of the liberal contingent, and Chief Justice John Roberts, among the court's conservatives but sometimes its swing vote, pointedly challenged assumptions by both sides.
It was one of several references to the crowded borough atop the Palisades that was thrust into the national political spotlight when the Bridgegate revelations surfaced. Some justices wondered about the chain of command in the Port Authority — and, in particular, who had the authority to approve of a lane realignment that would cause such massive traffic jams.
Kelly said she was surprised to see Christie but did not speak to him inside the Supreme Court. On Monday, Christie rode the same Amtrak train as Kelly and her lawyers from New Jersey to Washington. But Kelly said she and Christie did not speak to each other. Lawyers from the U.S. Solicitor General’s Office, who represented federal prosecutors in the case, also had a half-hour to argue that those convictions should stand.
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