Another day in the Bridgegate trial, another day for the engineer of the debacle to fill in the blanks about who knew what and when. Cameras are not allowed in federal court, but NJTV News Chief Political Correspondent Michael Aron is. He spoke with Anchor Mary Alice Williams.
Williams: Michael, David Wildstein was still on the stand?
Aron: Mary Alice, he could be on the stand all week. And his testimony is basically confirming the government’s theory of the case. He’s portraying the lane closures as a conspiracy by three people — himself, Bridget Kelly and Bill Baroni. He’s confirming that it was aimed at Mayor [Mark] Sokolich of Fort Lee, a mayor many of us had never heard of before any of this. He told the story about how he went to the George Washington Bridge two years earlier to tour the toll collection workforce there and realized when he saw the three access lanes from Fort Lee that this was a potential point of leverage as he called it. And then in June of 2013, fast forward, Bridget Kelly learns that Mayor Sokolich is not going to endorse Gov. Christie for re-election and Wildstein testified, “I told her that if she wanted to close down the lanes as a point of leverage with Mayor Sokolich, to let me know. She listened to what I said and said she’d let me know.” Then two months later, she sent the famous “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” email to Wildstein. He replied, “Got it.” He was asked today, did she give a reason? And he testified, “She told me a reason — to send Mayor Sokolich a message… He needed to understand that life would be more difficult for him in a second Christie term than in the first.” He admitted that the traffic study was a cover story. He said, “It was all my idea to create a cover story of a traffic study.” He talked about notifying his boss, Baroni, that Kelly had called and ordered a lane closure. Wildstein testified, “Mr. Baroni was fine with it. I understood that he had no objections to my closing the lanes to punish Mayor Sokolich.” Again, the cover story was Wildstein’s idea. The name Bill Stepien came up a lot today in testimony.
Williams: Bill Stepien who used to be the top aide to Gov. Christie and is now a top aide to Donald Trump.
Aron: He had Bridget Kelly’s old job in the governor’s office. Now he works for the Trump campaign. At this point in time he was the campaign manager for Christie’s re-election and as far as the cover story goes, Wildstein testified, “I told Mr. Stepien I was going to create the cover of a traffic study.” So those were the highlights, some of the highlights.
Williams: Did Wildstein implicate any other elected officials in the course of his testimony?
Aron: That was the other highlight and revelation, was that Wildstein testified that two weeks before the lane closures he had breakfast with Pat Schuber at his request, at Wildstein’s request. Schuber is the commissioner of the Port Authority, a well-known Republican, a former Bergen County executive for 12 years. And he said as a courtesy, since he was going to get a lot of the complaints from Bergen County, “I told him what we were going to do in two weeks and he was fine with it.” Now Schuber has told NJ.com late this afternoon, “It’s very surprising because I don’t recall that at all and I wouldn’t have agreed to it.” So there’s a dispute about whether Schuber was notified early. Two other quick points. Demeanor.
Williams: Wildstein’s been described as such an odious soul. What was his demeanor?
Aron: For this so-called maniacal guy, he’s coming across as totally reasonable I think, levelheaded. He admitted to being a dirty trickster, but I think he’s low key and I think he’s coming across as somewhat repentant.
Williams: Anybody play a featured role?
Aron: Gov. Christie, he hasn’t been implicated at all, but Wildstein says everything was aimed at his re-election, everything was aimed at getting Democratic endorsements over and over and over again.
Williams: Michael Aron, thank you very much.
Aron: Thanks.