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A law firm brought in by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has announced that the governor was not involved in the bridge closure scandal that rocked the state earlier this year, according to Fox News.
Randy Mastro, a former federal prosecutor, was part of the firm that ran the investigation. Mastro said that the investigation included some 250,000 documents, interviews with the governor and the administration.
“We found that Gov. Christie had no knowledge beforehand of this George Washington Bridge realignment idea,” Mastro said at a news conference.
In January, Christie contacted the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher to begin an internal review of the incident. The report was released prior to results from investigations by a special committee of state lawmakers and federal prosecutors.
Democrats are questioning the credibility of the report and how thorough it was because key figures involved in the incident refused to cooperate with Mastro.
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Mastro defended the investigation, and the results, claiming that his team reviewed thousands of documents. Those included text messages and emails from Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, office staff for the governor and former staff members.
“We believe we have gotten to the truth or we wouldn’t be reporting it,” he said.
Mastro also noted that the lane closures on the George Washington Bridge were not a reflection of the entire office.
“We found that this was the action of the few,” he said. “This is not reflective of the whole.”
The report from Mastro claims that David Wildstein, a former official at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, along with ex-Christie aide Bridget Kelly, were responsible for the lane closures. The two targeted Fort Lee mayor Mark Sokolich.
In the report, Mastro said that Kelly did not cooperate. He said that she also tried to cover her tracks when Christie started asking questions about what happened. She reportedly asked a colleague to delete an email about the plot. The report says that the colleague kept the email.
