Dear Commons Community,

A law firm hired by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Thursday that the governor was not involved in a plot to create gridlock on the George Washington Bridge as part of a political retribution scheme.    As reported by the Associated Press and The Huffington Post.

“The taxpayer-funded report released by former federal prosecutor Randy Mastro relies on interviews with Christie and other officials in his administration and 250,000 documents, many of them emails and text messages.

“We found that Gov. Christie had no knowledge beforehand of this George Washington Bridge realignment idea,” Mastro said at a news conference.

He also said the lane closures were not reflective of the way the governor’s office generally operates. “We found that this was the action of the few,” he said. “This is not reflective of the whole.”

His report comes out ahead of any results from independent investigations by federal prosecutors and a special committee of state lawmakers. Some of the key figures would not cooperate with Mastro’s investigation, leading Democrats to question the credibility of the report and its thoroughness.

Defending the report at the news conference, Mastro said his team was able to review a trove of documents, including emails and text messages among Christie, Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, top governor’s office staff and former staffers. “We believe we have gotten to the truth or we wouldn’t be reporting it,” he said.”

I question whether anyone other than Chris Christie believes this report.

Tony