After weeks of testimony in the much-anticipated “Bridgegate” trial, Bridget Anne Kelly, the former deputy chief of staff to Chris Christie, finally took the stand to testify in her defense. Facing criminal charges for her alleged involvement in the 2013 scandal, Kelly asserted that she believed the lane shutdown on the George Washington Bridge was just intended to be a traffic study—and that the New Jersey governor gave the scheme his stamp of approval.

The origins of the Bridgegate scandal can be traced back to a single e-mail authored by Kelly, which famously read, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” Those eight words set off a maelstrom of controversy and confusion that ultimately landed Kelly in court after it was revealed that former Christie staffers had engineered a traffic jam to punish the mayor of Fort Lee for not endorsing the New Jersey governor. Earlier this month, the prosecution’s star witness, David Wildstein, who previously pleaded guilty to masterminding the plot, testified that Christie not only knew about the lane shutdown, but laughed about it and participated in a cover-up. In her testimony on Friday, Kelly, too, alleged that Christie knew about the plot.

In court, the former Christie ally said that the plan was described to her as a traffic study, and that she was unaware of the true motivations behind the decision to close off lanes on the bridge—the same defense her alleged co-conspirator Bill Baroni gave last week. According to The New York Times, Kelly claimed that Wildstein told her that the study would cause “tremendous traffic problems” in Fort Lee, and that she told Christie about the Port Authority’s planned traffic study the day before she sent the infamous “traffic problems” e-mail.

Christie was issued a criminal summons earlier this month by a New Jersey judge who ruled that there was probable cause to investigate the onetime presidential hopeful for his involvement. Christie, however, has vehemently denied his involvement. “The simple fact is the Governor had no knowledge of the lane realignments either before they happened or while they were happening,” Brian Murray, Christie’s press secretary, told Vanity Fair in a statement following the ruling. The governor is scheduled to appear in court at the end of next month.