Samson refused to be interviewed for inquiry into closure of traffic lanes leading to the George Washington bridge last year

The governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, announced the resignation of his most senior appointee on a regional transport agency on Friday, in an attempt to bury a scandal that has battered his administration and undermined his presidential ambitions.

Christie said he had accepted the resignation of David Samson, the chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, hours before his first press conference in two months. Samson was "74 years old and tired", the governor said.

Samson refused to be interviewed for an inquiry commissioned by Christie over the closure last year of traffic lanes leading to the George Washington bridge, a key link between New Jersey and New York that comes under the control of the Port Authority.

It has been repeatedly suggested that the lane closures were ordered to punish the mayor of the nearby town of Fort Lee, who failed to endorse Christie in his bid for re-election as governor of New Jersey. The realignment of access lanes caused days of traffic chaos in the area in September last year.



Samson's resignation comes a day after the publication of a 360-page report by lawyers hired by Christie to conduct an investigation into the scandal. The inquiry, by the law firm Gibson Dunn and Crutcher, published on Thursday, recommended that the Port Authority be reformed.

The review heaped blame for the scandal squarely on Bridget Anne Kelly, the governor’s then deputy chief of staff, and David Wildstein, a Christie appointee on the Port Authority who orchestrated the closures. Christie fired Kelly after the extent of her involvement came to light, and Wildstein resigned from the Port Authority.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest David Samson: stepping down. Photograph: Andrew Burton/Getty Images

But the inquiry left unanswered questions over the role of Samson in the lane closures and their aftermath. Randy Mastro, the partner at Gibson Dunn and Crutcher who supervised the inquiry, said in a news conference on Thursday that the chairman had "denied any prior knowledge" of the incident in previous statements, "but we did not have the opportunity to interview him".

The report exonerated Christie over the decision to realign access lanes to the bridge. It also said that while Wildstein may have told Christie about the lane closures when they were in place, the governor did not recall being informed and would not have realised their significance. “Governor Christie did not know of the lane realignment beforehand and had no involvement in the decision to realign the lanes,” it concluded.

Christie's report did not resolve they key question of why the lanes were closed in the first place. "I don't know if we'll ever know what the motive is," Christie told reporters on Friday.

The governor said that Samson had made it clear to him more than a year ago that he was ready to leave the Port Authority, but stayed at the governor's request. Christie said Samson's resignation takes immediate effect.



In a statement released after Christie's press conference, Samson said: "Over the past months, I have shared with the governor my desire to conclude my service to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The timing is now right, and I am confident that the governor will put new leadership in place to address the many challenges ahead."

Friday's announcement came after federal prosecutors widened their investigation of the bridge scandal to include a possible conflict of interest involving Samson and the awarding of almost $3bn worth of construction contracts relating to other bridges. In recent weeks, prosecutors have reportedly subpoenaed the Port Authority for records relating to two contracts Samson helped steer to towards companies with links to his own law firm, Wolf and Samson.



The $1.5bn and $1.3bn projects to amend or renovate the Bayonne bridge and Goethals bridge, both of which link New Jersey to Staten Island, were awarded in part to companies that were clients of Samson's law firm. Samson chairs the 12-strong board of commissioners that voted to award the lucrative contracts.

The Asbury Park Press recently reported that Wolf and Samson, and a related lobbying business Samson also runs, more than doubled their earnings from government contracts since Christie came into office and appointed him to run the Port Authority. There is no evidence any of the other contracts are currently under investigation.

Samson is also connected to the controversy that flared in the wake of the "bridgegate" scandal, involving distribution of hurricane Sandy relief funds. Dawn Zimmer, the mayor of the New Jersey city of Hoboken, alleged in January that the Christie administration leaned heavily on her to pave the way for a lucrative development project by the Rockefeller Group, which was represented by Wolf and Samson.

Samson is not accused of directly intervening in the affair. But Zimmer claimed other Christie officials quietly warned her that Hoboken would be starved of aid money unless she got behind the development project backed by Samson's law firm.

As well as tainting Christie's associates, the George Washington bridge scandal has also hobbled the governor's 2016 presidential ambitions. He told reporters on Friday the scandal is "of no moment" to his presidential campaign, should he choose to run. On Thursday, Christie told ABC News' Diane Sawyer in a televised interview: "What has happened in last 10 weeks … I think will ultimately make me a better leader, whether it's governor of New Jersey or any other job I might take in the public or private sector."

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. Photograph: Julie Jacobson/AP

After his news conference, Christie was reportedly scheduled to travel to Las Vegas to woo casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. The billionaire Republican donor, who invested more than $90m into the 2012 presidential elections, is meeting Christie and a handful of other GOP presidential hopefuls, as he decides which to support. Christie supported a bill that legalised online gambling last year, saying it would raise about $1.2bn in revenue by July. But from the end of last November to February, it had only attracted $27.2m.

During the hour-long press conference on Friday, Christie repeatedly defended the tenacity of the report that cleared him of prior involvement in the bridge scandal. "I told them to find the truth, no matter where it led," he said of the investigation. He added: "I think this report will stand the test of time … and it will be tested."

Christie called the report "exhaustive", and said the attorneys were given enormous access to roughly 250,000 documents as well as other electronic records, including text messages and emails stored on Christie’s iPhone. The attorneys also interviewed nearly 70 people from Christie’s office and the Port Authority.



In combative exchanges with reporters, the governor brushed off criticism that the objectivity of the report was tainted by ties between the law firm that conducted the review and the Christie administration. "No matter who I chose to do this, questions would have been raised," he said.

Christie also sidestepped questions from reporters pushing the governor to comment on criticism that the report is sexist. Although Kelly was not interviewed for the report, it described her as "emotional" and "erratic" and disclosed – some say gratuitously – a relationship between Christie's former campaign manager Bill Stepien and Kelly. “By early August 2013, their personal relationship had cooled, apparently at Stepien’s choice, and they largely stopped speaking,” the report said.