Matt Mowers arrives for a court hearing Friday, Sept. 23, 2016. | AP Photo/Julio Cortez At Bridgegate trial, Trump aide describes how Christie's office tracked endorsements

NEWARK — A Donald Trump aide who worked for Gov. Chris Christie testified in federal court Friday that the Republican governor’s office meticulously tracked which local mayors had received special treatment and how likely they were to endorse his re-election campaign.

Matt Mowers, who was an aide in Christie’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, or IGA, told prosecutors that the office used a Google Document to note when a local mayor or council person had been invited to sporting events, invited to breakfast at the governor’s mansion or received steel from the wreckage of the World Trade Center.


Mowers, testifying in the George Washington Bridge lane closure trial, said officials were given a score on a scale of 1-10 about how likely they were to endorse Christie’s 2013 campaign.

Mowers said in U.S. District Court that the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, where the bridge is located, was among those officials. Mowers had been assigned to the mayor, Mark Sokolich, and other officials in the northern part of the state, as part of his job at a regional director with the office.

Sokolich, he wrote in the document, had a good chance of being persuaded.

“Only thing that could prevent endorsement is possible ambition for higher office (county executive),” Mowers said he wrote about the Democrat from Bergen County.

Mowers said he spoke to Sokolich frequently, meeting with the mayor about once a month and also calling every few weeks. They attended sporting events. They helped get Port Authority funding for local shuttle buses, with the governor writing the bistate agency a letter requesting the buses. Mowers said Sokolich even request a letter of recommendation from the governor to help his son get into Rutgers University.

The two had a good, friendly relationship, Mowers said.

By 2013, they began discussing the possibility that Sokolich would endorse Christie — at the mayor’s request, said Mowers, who is currently a national field coordinator working on the Trump campaign.

Sokolich testified earlier in the week that Mowers had been pushing him to endorse and that he’d felt uncomfortable at times. But Mowers said the mayor was so interested that he discussed having the entire town council endorse Christie, and suggested doing so after the Democratic primary so as not to upset the county party bosses.

“Given that he brought it up and the rest of the council was interested in endorsing as well,” Mowers said, he thought it “was something he would consider.”

But Sokolich ultimately told him he couldn’t do it, Mowers said.

Mowers said that at a meeting in March 2013 in Fort Lee, the mayor said he was concerned about his private business as a zoning attorney, and that he could lose contracts with local municipalities for endorsing Christie.

Mowers sent a text message to a higher ranking employee in the IGA saying what happened: “Unfortunately, I think Sokolich is going to be a no. It’s a shame, too, I really like the guy.”

He added in another message: “He flat out said ‘I wish I had the balls to do it’.”

Mowers left the governor’s office to join the Trump campaign the next month.

He said he heard twice after that from Bridget Anne Kelly, who was his boss at governor’s office, asking if he’d heard from Sokolich again. First she called him on his cell phone on the evening of August 12.

“At first, she called and we exchange pleasantries,” he said. “Then she asked if Mayor Sokolich is definitely not endorsing.”

“Ok, great, that’s all I needed to know,” she replied, Mowers said.

On Sept. 9, two local access lanes to the George Washington Bridge were closed, causing major traffic jams in Fort Lee. It was that day that Kelly sent Mowers a message asking again about Sokolich and whether they had spoken. He said they had not.

Kelly, who was a deputy chief of staff to the governor, and Bill Baroni, who was the deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, are accused of closing access lanes to the bridge to punish Sokolich for refusing to endorse Christie. The Port controls the bridge.

They allegedly worked with David Wildstein, who was the director of interstate capital projects for the bi-state agency. He had already pleaded guilty and plans to testify against both defendants this afternoon.

Christie, who is currently a top adviser to Trump, has denied any knowledge or involvement in the lane-closing incident. But prosecutors said on Monday the governor was told of the traffic gridlock on the third day of the lane closings.

Baroni and Kelly, both 44, were indicted last May on charges of conspiracy, fraud and civil rights violations.