Federal prosecutors brought charges Friday against three former allies of Gov. Chris Christie — but not Christie himself — in the George Washington Bridge traffic scandal, easing the legal threat that has hung over his 2016 White House ambitions for more than a year.
One of those charged, David Wildstein, a former high-ranking official at the transportation agency that operates the bridge, pleaded guilty, saying he and the other defendants engineered huge traffic jams to get even with a local politician.
Christie was not implicated in court or in the indictments.
“Based on the evidence currently available to us, we’re not going to charge anyone else in this scheme,” U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said at a news conference.
The Republican governor claimed vindication.
“Today’s charges make clear that what I’ve said from day one is true: I had no knowledge or involvement in the planning or execution of this act,” Christie said in a statement.
Wildstein, a former official at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, saying in court that he and the other Christie loyalists closed lanes and created gridlock in September 2013 as political payback against a Democratic mayor.
He also said the three of them concocted a cover story: It was all part of a traffic study.
Wildstein, 53, could face about two years in prison at sentencing Aug. 6.
The two people he implicated — former Christie deputy chief of staff Bridget Kelly and Bill Baroni, who was the governor’s top appointee at the Port Authority — were charged in an indictment unsealed later in the day.
Wildstein gave no indication in court that Christie had any role in the scheme. But after the hearing, his lawyer, Alan Zegas, reiterated a claim he made last year that there’s evidence Christie knew about it as it happened. He did not go into detail.
While Christie may be out of any immediate legal danger, politically it could be more complicated.
The charges put the scandal back in the news just as the presidential cycle is getting underway and other candidates are jumping into the race.
Also, Some Christie foes have suggested that even if he had no direct role in the plot, his bruising political style created a culture that led members of his administration to think they could get away with such tactics.
The scandal broke wide open more than a year ago when an email from Kelly to Wildstein was revealed. It read, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” Wildstein’s reply: “Got it.” That exchange was key in the indictment.
The closing of two of three access lanes caused monumental, bumper-to-bumper tie-ups at the George Washington Bridge, one of the busiest spans in the nation, linking New Jersey with New York City.Wildstein said they orchestrated the lane closings to start on the first day of school to punish the mayor of Fort Lee, a town at the foot of the bridge, for not endorsing Christie’s re-election bid.
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