Bob Jordan

@BobJordanAPP

Donald Trump's $30 million tax debt to New Jersey was reduced via settlement to $5 million after Gov. Chris Christie took office.

Christie says he's been friends with Trump for years and Trump made a large political contributions at Christie's request

Christie also took fire on a state settlement with another political contributor, Exxon Mobil

Donald Trump’s checkered history as a casino operator in Atlantic City also includes what was a $30 million tax debt to New Jersey -- a figure the New York Times reports was sliced to $5 million in 2011, the year after Gov. Chris Christie took office.

Public records do not create a clear picture of how the settlement was reached or if Christie had direct involvement.

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The Times discovered the agreement during a review of the thousands of documents filed in the bankruptcies of the Republican presidential nominee’s casinos. New Jersey corporate taxes went unpaid from 2002 through 2006, during which time Trump was leading the casino company as chairman.

Trump and Christie met in 2002, when Christie was the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey. Christie has frequently said he’s been friends with Trump since then.

Christie had nothing to do with the settlement, his spokesman, Brian Murray, said Wednesday.

"The New York Times was told repeatedly that the governor was unaware and uninvolved in a bankruptcy matter which began in 2005 while he was United States Attorney and was settled, without the governor's involvement, in 2011 by the New Jersey Department of Treasury and the Office of The Attorney General as a matter of course,’’ Murray said in an emailed statement.

“The New York Times once again shows their bias by using a complex bankruptcy settlement to weave a piece of political fiction. They ignore this simple fact: Gov. Christie had no knowledge of or involvement in the routine settlement of this matter.’’

Christie’s critics, however, said the chronology of events make it implausible that the governor had no knowledge of the deal Trump was brokering with his administration.

Phil Murphy, Democratic candidate for governor in 2017 (Christie can not run for reelection), said giving “Trump a pass on $25 million in back taxes (is) further proof of his fiscal ineptitude.’’

“Donald Trump played Chris Christie just like he played the bondholders he brags about short-changing for his past business failures, and the taxpayers of New Jersey are $25 million poorer for it,” Murphy said. “Instead of coddling self-described billionaires for political gain we need a governor who seeks fairness for all taxpayers. One could only hope that a middle-class family behind on their taxes would find such a sympathetic audience in the governor’s office.”

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“Most of us New Jerseyans will never have the luxury of having nearly all of our tax debts to the state wiped clean,” said Jon Whiten of New Jersey Policy Perspective, a liberal think tank.

“Even more galling is that this pennies-on-the-dollar settlement came at a time when the Christie administration has relentlessly pursued collecting debts of dead college students, and instituted aggressive new screening procedures that have kept over $300 million in Earned Income Tax Credit payments out of the hands of tens of thousands of working poor New Jerseyans,’’ Whiten said.

After Christie dropped his bid for this year’s Republican presidential nomination, he was named chairman of Trump’s presidential transition team. Christie will accompany Trump to a national security briefing in New York on Wednesday.

Trump contributed $350,000 to the Republican Governors Association in 2014, a donation made at Christie’s request, Trump has said.

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Christie took heat when the state in 2015 accepted a reduced settlement of $225 million from Exxon Mobil Corp. for damages and cleanup of more than 1,500 acres in the Linden and Bayonne areas estimated at $8.9 billion.

Exxon contributed $500,000 to the RGA in 2014 when Christie was chairman of the political organization.

Bob Jordan bjordan@gannettnj.com