Mike Kelly

Record Columnist, @MikeKellyColumn

Bill Brennan was a man on a self-professed mission on that Tuesday this past September when he drove from his home in Wayne to the federal courthouse in Newark.

Inside a fifth-floor courtroom, David Wildstein, the alleged mastermind of the Bridgegate scandal was on the witness stand telling a jury that Governor Christie, who insisted he knew nothing about the gridlock that clogged Fort Lee’s streets near the George Washington Bridge during a five-day stretch in September 2013, actually was informed about the traffic jams as they were taking place.

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Brennan, 50, a former Teaneck firefighter with a history of filing lawsuits and other court actions against government officials, had heard enough.

He left the courthouse and drove straight to Fort Lee, where he signed a criminal complaint charging Christie with official misconduct for not taking action to alleviate what officials in the crowded borough insist was a serious emergency. What seemed at the time to be little more than a quirky, Quixotic legal stunt by a man long-regarded as one of North Jersey’s most nettlesome gadflies, has now taken on a life of its own.

In October, Bergen County’s presiding municipal judge, Roy F. McGeady, citing Wildstein’s testimony that Brennan included in his complaint, found there was enough probable cause that Christie may have violated New Jersey’s official-misconduct statute. The judge's ruling allows prosecutors to investigate what Brennan called "this intentional, evil-minded act" in his complaint.

On Wednesday, Brennan plans to be in court again – this time demanding that another judge appoint an independent special prosecutor for the case, with no ties to state government. Brennan feels that no one in the network of state prosecutors – including the state Attorney General’s Office – can be trusted to objectively examine any possible link by Christie to the Bridgegate scandal.

This strange legal odyssey is unfolding as speculation persists about Christie getting a position in President-elect Donald Trump's administration, despite the governor's insistence again at a news briefing on Tuesday that he would finish his term.

At the same news conference in Trenton, Brennan made a surprise appearance. He attempted to confront Christie, but the governor ignored him.

Christie had declined in the past to comment about Brennan’s court appearance on Wednesday. But after McGeady’s ruling in October, the governor’s office lashed out at Brennan in a sharply personal attack.

A spokesman for the governor, Brian T. Murray, described Brennan’s complaint as “dishonorable.” And while reiterating statements that “the governor had no knowledge” of the Fort Lee traffic problems “either before they happened or while they were happening,” Murray made a point of calling Brennan a “serial complainant and political activist with a history of abusing the judicial system.”

In a letter to McGeady, Christie's attorneys called Brennan's complaint "rife with distortions."

Brennan says he expected as much.

'Civic duty'

In a series of interviews leading up to Wednesday’s court appearance, Brennan continually conceded that he is widely viewed as a major irritant to government officials from all corners of the political spectrum – and for good reason, he adds.

“I’m a person who takes his civic duty seriously,” Brennan said. “The fact that Chris Christie is somehow trying to make it a dishonorable thing says more about his integrity than mine. He wants to throw labels around. I’m throwing facts. If he has a bone to pick with me, then let’s take the bone out and pick it clean."

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The statement is typical of Brennan. It’s intensely defensive, idealistic and framed by a pointed challenge – all at once.

In conversation, Brennan is a virtual font of facts. Speaking at a rapid-fire clip, he can toss off legal references, dates, and even obscure news items as if he is reciting a grocery list. All this, without seeming to pause for a breath.

And while he bristles when he is called a gadfly by critics, Brennan also embraces the term – but with his own definition.

“A gadfly spurs the horses onward by biting them in the ass,” Brennan said. “If that’s being a gadfly then I am going to bite them in the ass to get them to move.”

As a firefighter, Brennan won a $3 million judgment against Teaneck after he charged township officials with harassment after he criticized a variety of Fire Department policies. Brennan left the Teaneck Fire Department in 2006. He says he used some of the money he won to put himself through Caldwell College and then Seton Hall Law School. And though he is not yet a member of the state bar, his legal training is clearly evident in his court case against Christie.

Besides Christie and the township of Teaneck, Brennan has initiated legal actions to obtain public records in a variety of New Jersey counties. He has also cited officials for ethics violations. And he became so vocal at public meetings in Teaneck and in Wayne that he had to be escorted from the building by police. As a registered Democrat, he also ran for council several times in Little Falls, several more in Wayne and also for Passaic County sheriff.

Brennan never won an election. But his combative personality along with his willingness to take opponents to court has left plenty of enemies still in fear of him – with a few even admitting they grudgingly admire his tenacity.

Still, most officials would only speak about Brennan if their names were withheld.

“He’s very articulate. He’s very smart. He’s very intense when he gets on a subject. And he’s relentless,” said one official who was targeted by Brennan for criticism. “But he’s also a habitual litigator. He’s an antagonist. He’s relentlessly greedy for his own enjoyment of dollars and ego. He’s one of a kind. He also contaminates other people around him.”

Many critics, who had been stung by Brennan in the past, now say they admire him for taking on Christie. They point to a variety of witnesses – not just Wildstein – who testified in the Bridgegate trial that the governor knew about the lane closures in Fort Lee long before he admitted.

"A broken clock is right twice a day, and Bill Brennan might have just found his hour,” said another official who asked not to be identified. “He was a little bit of a flaky nut, but you have to be that way to do things he does.”

Under New Jersey law, any citizen can file a criminal complaint – more than 13,000 were filed last year in municipal courts across the state. But usually, these sorts of complaints involve petty disputes. Merely filing a complaint does not guarantee it will be investigated. A judge has to determine whether there is enough evidence or probable cause that a crime was committed.

This is why McGeady’s ruling is so important. It allows state prosecutors to investigate Brennan’s charge that Christie “knowingly refrained from ordering that his subordinates take all necessary action to re-open local access lanes to the George Washington Bridge” after learning about the Fort Lee gridlock. Christie was told of the lane closures and gridlock at a 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan, the third day of the traffic snarls, according to testimony at the Bridgegate trial.

For his part, Brennan insists he is hardly interested in personal gain – financial or otherwise – from his court actions. Now divorced, he lives with his girlfriend and her son and daughter, as well as his 17-year-old son, while his 19-year-old son is at college. He supports his family mainly with the proceeds from his Teaneck lawsuit, he says, and spends most of his time now investigating public officials – and then trying to convince the media or other government agencies to take up his latest cause.

“These people can’t comprehend that anybody would have an altruistic motive,” Brennan said. “It’s so ingrained that people are involved in politics for self-aggrandizement. It’s beyond their comprehensions that someone would just want to enforce the law.”

“There is nothing in it for me,” Brennan added. “All kinds of aspersions and innuendo are heaped on me. What do I get out of it?”

For now, Brennan says he is only hoping for a wider investigation against Christie that extends beyond the Bridgegate scandal.

The first step, he says, is Wednesday's hearing to decide on whether to appoint a special prosecutor. After that, he says, anything could happen.

“This,” says Brennan, “is just a foot in the door.”

Email: kellym@northjersey.com