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Gov. Chris Christie, seen here with acting Attorney General Christopher Porrino.

(Aristide Economopoulos )

TRENTON -- Amid criticism that the release of legal bills tied to the George Washington Bridge scandal was being delayed as Gov. Chris Christie was vetted as a possible vice presidential candidate, New Jersey's acting attorney general on Thursday released six months of invoices adding to the taxpayer tab that already topped $10 million.

The invoices showed the state paid $202,827 to the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher between September of 2015 and March of this year, according to redacted copies released just before 6 p.m. on Thursday.

Former acting Attorney General Robert Lougey in May told lawmakers reviewing his department budget that the state had paid $8 million to the firm, which investigated the governor's involvement in the politically motivated lane closures and released a much-criticized report exonerating him of any wrongdoing. A digital forensics firm was paid $2.5 million for related work.

The Attorney General's Office on Thursday did not have an exact tally of the full amount paid thus far.

The legal tab picked up by Christie's administration in the aftermath of the Bridgegate scandal has been the subject of scrutiny because the governor has personal ties to many of the firm's top lawyers.

Earlier this week, WNYC noted that a response to its records request for the most recent invoices had been delayed until after Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump would likely have made his pick for vice president.

Christie was on the short list of candidates being vetted, and his newly appointed attorney general, Christopher Porrino, was the former top lawyer in the governor's office, hired in the immediate aftermath of Bridgegate.

According to news reports Thursday, Trump had chosen Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate, though Trump's campaign said no final decision had been made.

A spokesman for Porrino said the delay in releasing the Bridgegate bills was due solely to "technical and administrative issues" within the office.

"Consistent with our commitment to make the invoices public as expeditiously as possible, we're putting them out this afternoon," the spokesman, Lee Moore, said in an e-mail on Thursday.

The sum was also far less than previous disclosures.

The released documents contain itemized activity related to "subpoena response/internal investigation" performed by several people at the firm, including Randy Mastro, who authored the "Mastro Report" exonerating the governor, and Debra Wong Yang, a personal friend of Christie's.

The latest batch of bills came on a day of bad news for the Republican governor. Just as news organizations around the country were reporting that Trump had chosen Pence over Christie, the governor's longtime confidant, David Samson, was pleading guilty to a federal bribery charge.

S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.