As Chris Christie is sworn in for another term as New Jersey governor today, scandals and accusations of over-the-top bullying continue to pile up all around him.
This is the way the New York Times put it:
“Amid a flurry of subpoenas, investigations and allegations, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey will take the oath of office in Trenton on Tuesday morning, determined to put a celebratory face on an administration in crisis.”
In the latest scandal-in-the-making, the mayor of Hoboken, Dawn Zimmer, a Democrat, has alleged that the members of the Republican governor’s cabinet told her she wouldn’t be getting federal money to rebuild Hoboken and fortify it against another storm like Hurricane Sandy unless she supported a large-scale commercial development built on empty lots in Hoboken. The lots are owned by the Rockefeller Group, which built Rockefeller Center and is represented by the law firm of a close associate of Christie’s, David Samson, founding partner of the firm Wolff & Samson and who Christie appointed as chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Zimmer said the message was delivered to her by Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, who denied the charges, calling them “illogical.”
Zimmer said Hoboken received just two grants worth $342,000 out of $290 million the state had to pass along to municipalities for mitigating flooding and other storm damage. She pointed out that 80 percent of the tiny town of Hoboken, just a square mile in size, was underwater after the storm. Zimmer had a meeting on Sunday to relay her accusations to federal prosecutors, who are already investigating Christie for the matter that started his downfall, the allegations that a top aide closed down traffic lanes leading into Fort Lee as political retaliation against Fort Lee’s mayor and possibly its state senator.
Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop has accused Christie of withholding Port Authority funds from Jersey City—while cities all around him were lavished with millions—because Fulop, a Democrat, refused to endorse Christie for re-election.
In more bad news for Christie, nine-time Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis says Christie dropped a plan to appoint him as the state’s first physical fitness ambassador after he decided to run as a Democrat for state Senate in 2011 against Republican Sen. Dawn Addiego, a friend of Christie’s. Ultimately Lewis, who now lives in Houston, had to withdraw from the Senate race after a court ruled he didn’t meet a residency requirement.
In an interview with Yahoo’s Matt Bai, Christie said his state of mind after the Fort Lee story broke was “completely disorienting, like I got hit across the forehead with a two-by-four.”
Christie said he’s going to learn from the swirl of stories.
“So I’m going to learn from this,” he went on. “I can’t tell you yet what it is I’m going to learn. But I am intent on learning from this.”
