David Wildstein leaves Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Courthouse. | AP Photo/Mel Evans Spokesman knew about Bridgegate details before Christie said he learned of them, Wildstein says

NEWARK — Gov. Chris Christie’s chief spokesman learned the true nature of the George Washington Bridge lane closures before the Republican governor publicly said he’d become aware of the details and fired his deputy chief of staff, according to the admitted mastermind of the political revenge plot.

David Wildstein, who has already pleaded guilty in the case, told jurors in federal court Wednesday that he met with press secretary Michael Drewniak on Dec. 4, 2013, and confessed his involvement in the closures and said he needed to resign.


“I told him that others in the governor’s office had been involved in planning — had approved the planning,” Wildstein said during his testimony in U.S. District Court. “And I relayed to him the conversation I had with Governor Christie on September 11.”

Wildstein, during his testimony on Tuesday, said that he and Bill Baroni, the former deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, told Christie during a Sept. 11 memorial event about the ongoing traffic issues in Fort Lee, whose Democratic mayor, Mark Sokolich, had not endorsed Christie's reelection campaign. Christie, Wildstein told jurors, laughed about the situation.

On Wednesday, Wildstein said he told Drewniak, “that this was political retaliation for Mayor Sokolich not endorsing Governor Christie’s campaign.”

“He was quite upset and said he would speak to Kevin O’Dowd,” Wildstein said, referring to the governor’s chief of staff at the time.

Wildstein said he got a call from Charlie McKenna, Christie’s chief counsel, a day later and the two met on Dec. 6. He did not say what he disclosed to McKenna, other than that the lane closures were his idea. He said he agreed to announce his resignation from the Port Authority by the end of the day.

Throughout the scandal, Drewniak has maintained he knew nothing of the lane closures prior to or as they occurred. After that, he promulgated the idea that the lane closures were part of a seemingly fictitious traffic study.

A report commissioned by Christie's office and led by attorney Randy Mastro shows Drewniak inundated with press calls regarding the lane closures in September 2013 and growing increasingly anxious about the scandal. The report details a meeting Drewniak had at Drumthwacket with the governor's legal team prior to the now-famous marathon press conference Christie held in January 2014.

“At the time, Drewniak was not concerned about what would happen to him because he was not personally involved in, and did not have any prior knowledge of, the lane realignment,” the Mastro report stated. “Drewniak clarified that he might have been concerned at the time that the Office would let him go because of the statements in his emails about reporters, but not because he had any involvement with the lane realignment.”

Wildstein said he also wasn’t especially concerned about his future. Even as he planned to step down, he said he expected he would again have a role helping Christie, who at the time was considered a top contender for the Republican presidential nomination.

“I had been told by others that I was still on the governor’s team — that I was still of value to the governor’s team,” Wildstein said Wednesday under questioning by prosecutor Lee Cortes.

He said he was given that impression by Drewniak as well as by Bill Stepien, the governor’s former campaign manager, and Michael DuHaime, Christie’s chief political strategist. They told him, “Governor Christie was happy I had stepped up and taken responsibility,” Wildstein said.

Wildstein had already testified that he had told Stepien about the lane closures before they occurred and that he informed DuHaime after Christie’s reelection in November 2013.

The governor, however, continued to say publicly that the lane closures had been a traffic jam. He still says he didn’t learn what had occurred until the infamous “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” email was released to the public in January 2014.

Just a week after Wildstein’s alleged Dec. 4 meeting with Drewniak, Christie held a press conference in which he was asked if anyone else in his administration acted “on your behalf” to close the lanes “for political retribution.”

“Yeah, I have absolutely no reason to believe that, Angie, and I’ve made it very clear to everybody on my senior staff that if anyone had any knowledge about this that they needed to come forward to me and tell me about it, and they’ve all assured me that they don’t,” Christie said.

“Your campaign chief?” a reporter followed up.

“I’ve spoken to Mr. Stepien, who’s the person in charge of the campaign, and he has assured me the same thing,” Christie said.

But as the governor was talking, two other aides were exchanging text messages that directly contradicted what the governor was saying.

Christina Renna, the top deputy to one of the defendants charged in the lane closure scandal, then texted a staffer on Christie’s re-election campaign, Peter Sheridan, according to court filing that was released in August of this year.

“Are you listening? He just flat out lied about senior staff and Stepien not being involved,” Renna wrote.

“I'm listening... Gov is doing fine. Holding his own up there,” Sheridan responded.

“Yes. But he lied. And if emails are found with the subpoena or [Governor Christie's re-election campaign] emails are uncovered in discovery if it comes to that it could be bad.”

Less than a month later, on January 9, Christie held a press conference that ran for more than two hours and featured the normally combative Christie offering an apology for the scandal, though still denying having had any knowledge of it as it was happening.

Christie said he had learned of the details of the scheme and involvement from members of his staff just the day before, when private emails and texts were released after being subpoenaed by a legislative committee.

“I was blindsided,” the governor said at the time.

He fired Bridget Anne Kelly, his deputy chief of staff, that day.

Wildstein is testifying against Kelly and Baroni. The two were indicted last May on charges of conspiracy, fraud and civil rights violations.

They are accused of closing local access lanes to the bridge — the world’s busiest — to punish Sokolich for not endorsing Christie in his 2013 re-election bid. The bridge is located in Fort Lee, and the lane closures caused days of gridlock in the Bergen County town and surrounding communities.

Wildstein, who was the Port’s director of interstate capital projects, has already pleaded guilty and implicated the two others.

Christie, who is currently a top adviser to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, continues to deny having any knowledge or involvement in the scheme.

“I want to be really clear. I have not and will not say anything different than I've been saying since January 2014,” Christie said on Tuesday at an unrelated press conference. “No matter what is said up there. I had no knowledge prior to or during these lane realignments. I had not role in authorizing it. I had no knowledge of it. And there's no evidence ever put forward that I did.”

-- Additional reporting contributed by David Giambusso. This story has been written through with additional news from Wednesday's testimony.