And now, this is "good" news:
Actually, I take that back. There's zero chance this review was ever going to put Christie in hot water. Sure, taxpayers paid for it, but even though Christie wasn't footing the $650 hourly bill:
It will be viewed with intense skepticism, not only because it was commissioned by the governor but also because the firm conducting it, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, has close ties to the Christie administration and the firm’s lawyers were unable to interview three principal players in the shutdowns, including Bridget Anne Kelly, the governor’s former deputy chief of staff.Yet even though this "investigation" smells more like Christie graft than anything else, his team is talking it up as a clean bill of health, even trying to make a big deal over things like this:
Friendly exchanges with Christie aides turned a bit frosty as the lawyers’ requests multiplied, according to interviews. A less-than-popular move: collecting iPhones and BlackBerrys from the governor’s top aides for inspection.Oooh! They reviewed BlackBerrys. If that's not a sign of a really thorough investigation, I don't know what is. But yet the lawyers never talked with any of the three individuals most closely implicated in the scandal: former Christie political chief Bill Stepien, former deputy chief of staff Bridget Anne Kelly, or former Port Authority executive David Wildstein.
The bottom line is that this inquiry fails to explain why the lane closures were ordered and treats this absence of information as an exoneration of Christie. But don't expect New Jersey taxpayers to be getting a refund anytime soon.
