By Times of Trenton
on August 22, 2014
The good people of New Jersey, already shelling out top dollar to keep their cash-strapped state running, have a new burden to carry: their governor’s legal bills.
The law firm representing Chris Christie and his administration in connection with the George Washington Bridge scandal has submitted its latest invoice — for a cool $6.5 million. Added to related government legal costs that We the People will be shouldering, the total comes to $8.5 million. And the meter is still running.
See anyone out there eager to dig into his pocket to dig Christie out of a hole many believe he dug for himself? Neither do we.
The recent bills came from the law firm of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher for an internal investigation which (surprise!) absolved the governor of wrongdoing in last fall’s incident, in which multiple lanes on the heavily trafficked bridge were inexplicably closed, causing massive gridlock.
This is hardly the first time the governor has shown a cavalier attitude toward taxpayers’ wallets. Remember that last year, he ordered a special election to replace the late U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, just three weeks before a regularly scheduled November election.
His official reason? Christie didn’t want to cause “voter confusion.” The unofficial version? He didn’t care to share the ballot with the highly charismatic Cory Booker.
That thinking ran up an estimated tab of $12 million above and beyond the cost of a general election.
And then there are those town hall meetings — more than 120 so far — where the governor famously gets to insult teachers and call ex-Navy SEALS idiots. Billed as opportunities to interact with constituents, these gathering, often limited to a select audience, smell more to us like taxpayer-funded campaign rallies.
Meanwhile, costs for the legislative investigation into the bridge closings — closings many believe were meant as retaliation after Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat, declined to endorse Christie — also continue to mount, even as federal authorities conduct their own probe.
By as early as April, the New Jersey Legislative Select Committee on Investigation, which Democratic lawmakers have used to get a handle on the bridge events, had spent at close to half a million in state funds for a legal team led by Reid Schar, a former federal prosecutor.
File under: Department of Redundancy Department.
The real tragedy is that all this money could have been so much more wisely spent — say, to restore the $7.5 million that under the Christie administration is no longer underwriting women’s health initiatives such as mammograms and cancer screenings.
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