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Has candidate Christie been exonerated by his campaign contributors? (Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images)

It was bad enough that Chris Christie's "dear friend" Debra Wong Yang hosted a fundraiser for his campaign on the same day that she was doing taxpayer-funded interviews for his "independent" Bridgegate investigation.



Now we learn that 28 lawyers from her firm, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher - which conducted the internal investigation that Christie commissioned into the lane closures - are personally funding Christie's campaign.



Yep, the same wealthy lawyers who "exonerated" Christie are bailing him out as donations run low. Which raises the question: Do we look stupid? Or is the Christie campaign just that desperate?

RELATED: Meet the top donors to Chris Christie's presidential campaign



Yang is among the contributors, as are three other lawyers who led this "independent" probe. These are the people who lead investigator Randy Mastro, himself one of the donors, said sat in on his Bridgegate interviews with the governor.



"We had only one incentive here - to get to the truth," Mastro said. Except that the lawyers also destroyed all their notes and have tried to block attempts to review other original documents, as the federal trial of Christie's appointees approaches.

The report they prepared, an $8 million whitewash, proclaimed Christie's innocence -- describing the tears in his eyes as he spoke of how he was betrayed.



Their campaign donations really tug at our heart strings, too. They are giving Christie cash just as his biggest financiers back out. Most people fund presidential campaigns because they're "trying to predict a winner," Christie acknowledged on NBC. But his Bridgegate lawyers are happy to throw money at his losing campaign. That's what friends are for.

The $67,700 they and their firm's political action committee contributed - Christie's biggest source of campaign money in the fourth quarter of last year - is peanuts compared to the millions they've earned so far for representing him in Bridgegate.

This is a nice little end run around New Jersey's "pay-to-play" laws, which prohibit people who contract with the state from donating to political campaigns - but don't apply to federal campaigns.



And as the money flows back and forth, Christie reiterates his claim that he knew nothing, and attacks Marco Rubio. "You have not been involved in a consequential decision where you need to be held accountable," Christie charged at the debate on Saturday.



But what, exactly, does a man who's paid $8 million dollars of our money for a cover-up know about such things?

Bridgegate's shadow on Chris Christie's presidential hopes 6 Gallery: Bridgegate's shadow on Chris Christie's presidential hopes

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