TRENTON -- The former co-chairs of the legislative committee that looked into Bridgegate are calling on the state attorney general's office to investigate whether a former aide to Gov. Chris Christie should be charged with intentional destruction of evidence for deleting text messages.

Federal court filings on Wednesday show that Christina Renna, a former director of the governor's now-defunct office of intergovernmental affairs, sent text messages to Peter Sheridan, the New Jersey Republican Party's deputy executive director, during Christie's Dec. 13, 2013, press conference about lane closures on the George Washington Bridge.

In them, Renna claimed the governor "flat out lied" about his senior staff and campaign manager Bill Stepien not having knowledge of the lane closures, which the U.S. Attorney's Office said were ordered as political retribution because Fort Lee's mayor would not endorse Christie's 2013 gubernatorial run.

"Clearly the Christina Genovese Renna text message is a disturbing revelation that warrants an investigation by the attorney general," state Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Middlesex) told NJ Advance Media.

"She deleted her text messages at a time when the Assembly transportation committee, armed with subpoena power, was investigating the lane closures.

If that doesn't amount to the intentional destruction of evidence, I don't know what does."

His concerns were echoed by state Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen), who said Renna appeared to have perjured herself in sworn testimony before the Legislature's investigative committee during an exchange with Assemblyman Lou Greenwald (D-Camden) in December 2013.

In a transcript of the exchange, Greenwald asks Renna directly, "At any time between the early part of September and as you sit here today, do you know who was the architect of it and who worked with Bridget Kelly to order the shut down of the lanes?" (Kelly was Renna's boss and deputy chief of staff for Christie.)

Renna answers, "I don't know directly, no. I mean, I think we all have theories, but I don't know."

Greenwald immediately asks Renna: "OK. All right, when you say we don't know directly, it's not that you have heard from other people who have knowledge? You honestly, as you sit here, have no knowledge and do not know."

"Correct," Renna answered.

In the newly disclosed texts, Renna said Christie just "flat out lied" when he told reporters his senior staff and campaign manager had no knowledge of the lane closures.

Renna would later delete her texts to Sheridan, according to the court filings.

"She began with something of an untruth, because she made that statement to the committee in May 2014, and the text came in December 2013," said Weinberg.

"We now know we have at least one witness who did not give us the truth, as the law requires."

Renna's attorney, Henry Klingeman, said earlier in the day that she would not comment immediately about the texts, and that she "will answer questions publicly when she testifies" at the upcoming Bridgegate trial of Kelly and former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni.

State law (NJSA 2C:28-6) makes tampering with or fabricating physical evidence a fourth degree crime "if, believing that an official proceeding or investigation is pending or about to be instituted ... alters, destroys, conceals or removes any article, object, record, document or other thing of physical substance with purpose to impair its verity or availability in such proceeding or investigation."

Fourth-degree crimes carry a potential penalty of up to 18 months in jail.

Renna did testify that she deleted some messages from Kelly at Kelly's request.

Weinberg said that the language used by Renna in her text message was "pretty damning" and "disgusting" given that "there's no equivocation in those words."

Weinberg and Wisniewski both called for the Attorney General's Office to investigate, but stipulated that newly appointed state Attorney General Christopher Porrino should recuse himself from any investigation, given his prior service as chief legal counsel to the Office of the Governor from 2014 through last June.

Weinberg said she voted to confirm Porrino as attorney general last month out of concerns that an acting attorney general serves at the pleasure of the governor and lacks the full constitutional authority to investigate his office.

Just because Porrino would have to recuse himself "doesn't mean his office does," Weinberg said.

Christie's spokesman, Brian Murray, on Wednesday emailed a statement saying that "the governor's statements have been clear" and that "nothing contained in this text message changes that in any way. He stands by those statements completely and unequivocally."

Since a Jan. 9, 2014, speech in which Christie said he was lied to by senior staffers, the governor has maintained that he neither knew nor authorized the lane closures and only became aware of them after reading a Wall Street Journal story about them after the lanes reopened.

Claude Brodesser-Akner may be reached at cbrodesser@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ClaudeBrodesser. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.