What's this controversy about Christie and Jersey City's mayor?

In May 2013, Steven Fulop — a 36-year-old Marine and Iraq War veteran — was elected as mayor of Jersey City. He was immediately viewed as a rising star in the Democratic Party — and, apparently, as a potential big get for Chris Christie's re-election campaign, which wanted to demonstrate the governor's bipartisan support by winning endorsements from local Democrats. The administration quickly scheduled a round of meetings for the mayor-elect with six top state officials.

"Radio silence. His name comes right after Mayor Fulop," Wildstein wrote.

However, in mid-July, Fulop sent word that he wasn't going to endorse Christie's campaign. Suddenly, as Melissa Hayes of the Bergen Record and Kate Zernike of the New York Times reported, all of those meetings were canceled — most within the very next hour, via personal calls from those top state officials. "That the commissioners called the mayor's office personally shows an unusually close level of involvement for high-ranking government officials," Zernike wrote.

Emails show that Christie's head of intergovernmental affairs, Bridget Kelly — the aide who wrote the infamous "time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee" email — had initially arranged the meetings between state officials and Fulop.

A Bridgegate email also briefly mentioned Fulop — and revealed the mayor was not in good standing with some members of Christie's administration. In the email, Kelly asked David Wildstein, the Port Authority official who executed the lane closures, whether the calls of Mayor Mark Sokolich of Fort Lee were being returned. "Radio silence. His name comes right after Mayor Fulop," Wildstein wrote in response.