NEW YORK — Lawyers hired by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s administration said Thursday that the governor was not involved in a plot last year to create traffic gridlock in a political payback scheme.
The taxpayer-funded report released by former federal prosecutor Randy Mastro relied on interviews with Christie and other officials in his administration — who were not under oath — and 250,000 documents, many of them e-mails and text messages. But the key figures in the plot did not cooperate, leading Democrats to question the credibility of the report.
The probe concluded Christie had no knowledge beforehand of lane closings Sept. 9-12 near the George Washington Bridge between New Jersey and New York that caused four days of gridlock in the community of Fort Lee.
“Gov. Christie’s account of these events rings true. It’s corroborated by many witnesses, and he has conducted himself at every turn as someone who has nothing to hide,” the report found.
The report concluded that former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey official David Wildstein and ex-Christie aide Bridget Kelly were behind the closures and that they were targeting Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich.
