TRENTON, NJ - MARCH 11: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's former Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly waits in court during a hearing on March 11, 2014 in Trenton, New Jersey. The hearing will decide whether Kelly and two-time campaign manager Bill Stepien will be forced to turn over text messages and private communications to investigating New Jersey legislators in the political payback bridge scandal looming over the Christie administration. (Photo by Mel Evans-Pool/Getty Images)

The lawyer for Bridget Anne Kelly, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's former deputy chief of staff, issued a fierce defense of Kelly in a report on the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal.

In a statement obtained by the Newark-based Star-Ledger newspaper, Kelly's attorney Michael Critchley condemned the Christie-commissioned report released on Thursday, saying "the report's venomous, gratuitous, and inappropriate sexist remarks concerning Ms. Kelly have no place in what is alleged to be a professional and independent report."

He also hinted that, given the right circumstances, Kelly would cooperate with the investigation. "Ms. Kelly is not a liar," he said in the statement. "If Ms. Kelly were provided with the appropriate procedural safeguards," he went on, she would be "fully cooperative" with the probe.

The report cleared the Republican governor of wrongdoing in the Bridgegate scandal that closed Fort Lee, N.J.'s, access roads to the George Washington Bridge from Sept. 9 to Sept. 12. The report blamed the closure on Kelly and former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Official David Wildstein. The report also mentioned that Kelly was involved in a relationship with former Christie campaign manager Bill Stepien.