During opening arguments in the Bridgegate trial, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman suddenly got up and walked out.

He had just gotten word that two police officers had been shot in Linden as they moved to arrest Ahmad Khan Rahami, the suspect in the recent bombings. Fishman had work to do.

It made me wonder: Is a traffic jam in Fort Lee really all that important?

But after two weeks of eye-popping testimony about the cabal of crazies in Gov. Chris Christie's inner circle, I've put those doubts aside.

This isn't about the traffic jam, any more than Watergate was about the burglary.

The original sin is bad, granted. Thousands of people missed appointments. Cops and ambulances screamed about the gridlock they faced trying to answer calls about a heart attack and a missing child. And Christie's crazies ignored frantic emails from the Fort Lee mayor with the subject line: "urgent matter of public safety."

The bigger problem for Christie is that the traffic allowed the FBI to pry off the lid of his administration. What they found inside, now revealed under oath at trial, is pure Jersey stink.

These guys were using the Port Authority as a slush fund to advance his presidential ambitions. Each time you pay that damn $15 toll to cross the Hudson, think about that.

Here's a sampling, from the sworn testimony of David Wildstein, the prosecution's chief witness:

- Christie revealed grand jury testimony of a supervising police officer at the Port Authority, a federal crime. He then ordered Wildstein to fire that officer, and to give his plum job with its $200,000 salary to a popular Democratic sheriff in Passaic County, Jerry Speziale.

Did Christie love Speziale? No, he just wanted him to retire from politics, along with his campaign war chest of nearly $1 million.

"What he (Christie) told me and others is that he was trying to win a sheriff's race in Passaic County," Wildstein said.

Michael Critchley, a defense attorney, pressed him: "Didn't an attorney who worked at the Port Authority ... say the FBI is going to come knocking at your door for what you did? Because it was a quid pro quo?"

Prosecutors objected. The rest of us wondered if the FBI is still digging.

- Wildstein said that Port Authority money was doled out routinely to reward political friends, especially Democrats who endorsed Christie for re-election. Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo got "in the seven figures" for a park, he said. Sen. Sandra Cunningham (D-Hudson) was convinced not to run for mayor in Jersey City after Port Authority gave $1.5 million to the local Urban League she supported. Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop got help for a private firm he represented on the side, FAPS, in return for a promise to endorse, a promise that he later broke.

- This one is not expensive, but to say that it is tasteless doesn't quite capture it: Christie's crew at the Port Authority used the scraps of steel from the September 11 attacks as political chits to win endorsements from local mayors. They flew flags over the site so they could hand them out as prizes as well.

And they were just getting started. Wildstein said he and Bill Stepien, the governor's campaign manager, discussed handing out more of these flags in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina to support a presidential campaign that in 2013 was already a driving obsession.

This is a trial, and we don't know how much of this is true yet. Fulop and Cunningham deny the stories about them, and Christie denies being anywhere near the planet Earth during this period.

The governor has tried to squirm as far from Wildstein as he can get. In his famous two-hour press conference in January 2014, he was asked about their friendship, dating back to high school.

"I was the class president and athlete - I don't know what David was doing during that period of time," the governor said. "We went 23 years without seeing each other. And in the years we did see each other, we passed in the hallways."

Get it? Christie was smooching with cheerleaders while Wildstein was watching Brady Bunch re-runs. If that loser dreamed up Bridgegate, what's that got to do with the Big Man?

That lone-wolf myth was smashed to pieces on Friday when Critchley walked through Wildstein's calendar: It was packed with meetings and calls with the governor himself, and all his senior team. Wildstein was a core player on Christie's team.

The challenge for prosecutors is that Wildstein is a strange creature, driven to lie, cheat and steal to get ahead. Critchley murdered him on the stand Friday, showing how each admitted lie was a rational move to advance his self-interest. Jurors could not miss the point - that he may be lying now to avoid prison time.

Prosecutors have relied on Wildstein only when his testimony is fortified by emails, texts and phone logs. His charges against Christie don't have that scaffolding, which is no doubt why the governor is not at the defense table.

Still, the two who are charged - Bill Baroni and Bridget Anne Kelly -- have an interest in exposing the role of the governor and his senior team. And if new evidence emerges, Fishman remains free to file fresh criminal charges against the governor after this trial is over.

My guess, though, is that the governor was smart enough to leave no fingerprints. We know that he deleted text messages that were sent and received at incriminating moments.

But this trial will end what's left of his political career. Every day the stink gets worse as evidence builds that he and his crew behaved like a pack of frat boys, and that his claim to be a reformer was pure spin from the start.

The joke, sadly, is on all of us.

More: Tom Moran columns

Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com or call (973) 836-4909. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.