Dan Wright and Rosi EfthimUncategorized

Dan Wright is a Blue Jersey alum now managing the news desk at Shadowproof. Rosi Efthim is the Editor at Blue Jersey. Photo: Wiz & Bernie Sanders.



In an exclusive interview yesterday with Blue Jersey, Assemblyman John Wisniewski let it be known that he is far from finished with Governor Chris Christie and the now notorious, fictional “traffic study” for the George Washington Bridge.

When asked about impeaching the governor (see, The Case to Impeach Chris Christie), Wisniewski said he was open to the idea, but that there was still investigative work to be done to get to the bottom of exactly what Christie knew and when he knew it:

“The people of New Jersey deserve to know if their governor is a liar,” Wisnewski said, and highlighted Gov. Christie’s use of executive privilege to block the joint investigating committee from seeing vital information about Christie’s conduct during the traffic study and later testimony about it.

Of particular interest to Wisniewski are Christie’s cell phone records, which though deleted, may be electronically recoverable. There’s solid evidence the governor was texting with his staff during legislative hearings on the traffic study, Regina Egea said she was texting with the governor during the testimony of Port Authority Executive Director Pat Foye. Those texts were later deleted.

Assemblyman Wisniewski said he wanted to challenge Christie’s use of executive privilege during the hearings, but was stymied by leaders of the legislature. He still believes challenging that privilege is necessary both to learn what really happened in this case and to stop a precedent from being set, saying “The fundamental underpinning to do a legislative inquiry is at stake.”

If the investigation is reopened, Wisnewski plans to go beyond trying to get Christie’s cell phone records and will call back witnesses whose testimony in federal court did not match their testimony before the legislative investigation committee, as well as those who previously used Fifth Amendment protections such as David Wildstein, Bridget Kelly and Bill Stepien.

Stepien has yet to be charged (if he ever will be), but Wildstein and Kelly have had their day in court and can no longer reasonably assert that their testimony before the legislature puts them in legal jeopardy. “The basis [for invoking the Fifth Amendment] is now removed,” Wisniewski said.

So, what’s the problem?

Come on, it’s New Jersey folks. The race for governor has already started and Assemblyman Wisniewski is a declared candidate while the speaker of the assembly, Vincent Prieto, and many others in the legislature have declared their support for rival candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor, businessman Phil Murphy.

That makes reopening Bridgegate a prickly issue in Trenton, in which the political considerations of Democratic players could be put above the public’s right to know whether their governor could have stopped the politically-motivated plot to endanger the lives of hundreds of thousands of commuters, including school children, on the busiest bridge in the world. For four days. Prieto is the ultimate authority on either reopening the investigation or bringing an impeachment vote [more on that next week, stay tuned]. Behind the scenes, there is a concern among Democratic legislators who support Murphy that new hearings would help Wisnewski’s candidacy with “free media.”

Wisniewski bristled at the notion saying “Doing our business in Trenton should not matter who is running for what,” and that such thinking “underscores the transactional nature of New Jersey politics.”

Regardless of whom you are supporting for governor, Wisnewski said, there is an issue about the abuse of power with Bridgegate “that is still not resolved.”