Chris Christie plans tell-all. From Bridgegate to Trump, these questions need answers

Charles Stile | NorthJersey

Show Caption Hide Caption What will Christie be remembered for most? NorthJersey.com's John McAlpin and Charles Stile pull apart the chapters of Chris Christie's political story to find out what he'll be remembered for the most. (Orig. broadcast live on Facebook, Nov. 15, 2017)

Gov. Chris Christie is penning a tell-all memoir about his "wild ride" from Trenton to the brief stint at the summit of Trump world and then crashing back down to the unfriendly snake pit of the Statehouse, where everybody counted the hours before his departure.

The book, due out early next year, will be called "Let Me Finish,'' but knowing Christie, "Let Me Start Settling Scores" might be a more appropriate title. Christie's enemies list could very well fill the book's index.

But if the book is anything like most political memoirs, it looms as a self-serving, one-sided defense of his tenure relying on facts that make him shine while omitting the blots that darken his place in history. The political memoir is often a notch above propaganda.

To offer the reading public and posterity a more well-rounded portrait, here are a few lingering questions Christie might want to consider clarifying in his book. It might make for a more compelling read.

The "Bridgegate" scandal

The book could provide more detail about his knowledge of the George Washington Bridge scandal. For example, Christie could explain why he proclaimed in a nationally televised news conference Jan. 9, 2014, that it came as such a shock to read emails and texts in The Record and at NorthJersey.com implicating three of his top aides in the George Washington Bridge lane-closing plot.

Christie made that assertion even though — as federal and legislative investigations would later show — red flags about their involvement had been piling up on his desk weeks earlier.

In early December, senior aides alerted Christie that Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly; Bill Baroni, the deputy executive director at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; and David Wildstein, Christie's enforcer at the port, may have been aware of or involved in the lane closings.

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And at least one top Christie loyalist relayed some of that troubling warning minutes before a Dec. 13 press conference, in which Christie declared that no one had been involved in the scheme. Christie has argued that he gave a truthful reply to a reporter's question because he had just confronted his staff that very morning and no one came forward suggesting any role in orchestrating a retaliatory scheme to punish the Fort Lee mayor with traffic jams.

But that explanation did little to dispel the notion that Christie did little to investigate the matter. And there was ample reason to believe that the administration's official explanation — that the approach lanes in Fort Lee were closed as part of a routine traffic study — was nonsense. Further, testimony at Kelly and Baroni's federal trial in 2016 suggested that Christie was alerted to the lane closings as they occurred in September 2013.

The missing text messages

Now that Christie has time to reflect, maybe he can summon from the recesses of his memory the contents of those mysterious text messages he exchanged with a senior aide during one of the first — and explosive — legislative hearings into the lane-closing fiasco.

During the Dec. 9, 2013, hearing of the Assembly Transportation Committee, top Port Authority officials shredded the Christie administration's explanation that a routine traffic study was the cause of the two traffic-snarling lane closings at the Fort Lee access lanes to the bridge. "I was not aware of a traffic study,'' Patrick Foye, executive director of the Port Authority, told the panel.

Christie began firing off the first of a 12-text exchange with Regina Egea, who oversaw independent agencies, including the Port Authority. Christie said he had "no recollection" of the texts, and Egea recalled only one text, and that she may have been commenting on the professional conduct of the officials. The contents of the text were never disclosed, and a legislative panel concluded that they were probably deleted.

Yet the flurry of texts, coming at a time when the administration's official explanation came crashing down, also belied the portrait Christie cultivated during the bubbling crisis as a governor too busy to be bothered with a trifling traffic jam. It also came at a time when Christie was being touted as a front runner for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. The exchange pointed at one possible explanation: Christie recognized the political danger to his career and was desperate to contain the damage.

Christie's sudden bout of amnesia about the texts never seemed credible.

The elusive cellphone

Christie could clear up the confusion over his cellphone, which might have contained a trove of emails, text messages and other data that investigators might have yielded valuable clues and context about the lane closings.

No one was ever certain who had possession of the phone until a spokesman disclosed in July 2016 that it was in the hands of Christie's then-personal attorney, Christopher Wray — who just happens to be the current director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I doubt that Christie or his publisher will hire a cyber-expert to extract its contents, but maybe they could have a photograph of it included in the book. Then the public can have some assurance that it exists.

His friendship with the king of Jordan

The book should provides Christie a chance to give a more detailed account of how his friendship with King Abdullah of Jordan blossomed in 2012.

That year, Christie took his family to trade mission to Israel on a plane owned by Sheldon Adelson, a casino mogul and Republican donor. At the end of the trip, the entourage enjoyed a lavish weekend at a luxury hotel in Jordan and partied with Bono, the lead singer of U2. King Abdullah of Jordan picked up the $30,000 tab, according to published reports.

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Christie justified the trip by citing a provision in state code of conduct permitting governors to accept gifts from "personal friends." Apparently, Christie befriended the king during a private dinner thrown by then-New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

Political figures mingle in social settings, all the time. They are fleeting cocktail party encounters — hardly the place to forge lasting, fraternal bonds. So how else did Christie and the king deepen their bromance? Did they share a common love of the New York Mets? Did the king come to a few barbecue dinners at Christie's home in Mendham? The book could disclose new details.

And why not? Christie didn't hesitate clarifying the status of his relationship with Wildstein during his two-hour January 2014 press conference when the Bridgegate scandal exploded into a national story. Christie insisted that Wildstein was not a friend — even though they went to high school together, were teammates on the baseball team (Wildstein as statistician) and volunteered on the same gubernatorial campaign.

"We didn't travel in the same circles in high school. You know, I was the class president and athlete. I don't know what David was doing during that period of time,'' Christie said.

The failed ouster of the state Senate Republican leader

One of the more puzzling episodes of Christie's tenure was his November 2013 attempt to remove Senate Minority Leader Thomas H. Kean Jr. and install his ally Sen. Kevin O'Toole of Cedar Grove.

It was puzzling for two reasons. Governors rarely get directly and publicly involved in a legislative leadership battle. And he was also trying to humiliate the son of former Gov. Thomas H. Kean, an adviser and mentor to Christie since his teen years. Kean has never really forgiven Christie for the move.

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Video: Tom Kean - Christie's talents on par with Bill Clinton's Reflecting on the outgoing governor's time in office, former N.J. Governor Tom Kean said Chris Christie's political talents were on par with Bill Clinton's.

Many Statehouse insiders speculated that Christie was doing the bidding of Senate President Stephen Sweeney, the Legislature's most powerful Democrat. Sweeney was furious with Kean, who spearheaded an effort to knock Sweeney from office that November. Sweeney survived and was eager for revenge and turned to Christie to upend the career of his fellow Republican, according to Statehouse observers.

If that's the case, then a question still hovers over the Christie legacy: Did he really wield Caesar-like power in the Statehouse, as everyone assumed, or was he simply at the mercy of Sweeney and George Norcross III, Sweeney's powerful benefactor? The book could give him the space to explain

The departure of Michael Flynn

Christie made it clear last year that he felt that the former U.S. Army lieutenant general was a bad apple and shouldn't be allowed in the Oval Office, let alone be given a job in the administration.

Yet Christie refused to discuss his misgivings and told reporters that he would dish out his reasons in the book. Flynn pleaded guilty earlier this year to lying to the FBI and is now cooperating with the special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

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