Chris Christie’s ongoing ties with his old friends at the US Attorney’s office just got much worse.
First we learned that Chris Christie gave a highly inappropriate loan to one of his Assistant US Attorneys, Michele Brown, when he was her boss. Given his seeming magical coordination of campaign events with high profile busts by his former office, that "ongoing financial relationship" is highly suspect. Then we learned that DOJ’s Office of Public Responsibility is already investigating whether acting US Attorney Ralph Marra made inappropriate politicized comments when he announced the politicos, rabbis, and kidney busts last month.
In other words, there’s already growing evidence that Chris Christie is mobilizing ongoing relationships with friends at the US Attorney’s office to help his campaign against Governor Corzine.
But that was before we learned that Christie was filmed on February 28 at the Breakfast Bagels with Baroni event in West Windsor, promising to give his former AUSAs jobs throughout state government, speaking of them as if they were still "his" AUSAs, and admitting that he had already had a conversation about this with them about those jobs.
You know, we’re going to ferret out waste and fraud and abuse in the government. I think you know I’ll do that better than anybody. I’ve got a group of assistant U.S. attorneys sitting down in Newark still doing their job. But let me tell you, they are watching the newspapers. And after we win this election, I’m going to take a whole group of them to Trenton with me and put them in every one of the departments because they saw a lot of waste and abuse being investigated while we were in the U.S. Attorney’s office that didn’t rise to the level of a crime. So I told them, the good news is, when we get to Trenton we don’t have to worry about beyond a reasonable doubt anymore.
So here’s a poll. Which of the following Christie statements do you find the most damning?
- I’ve got AUSAs in Newark
- I’m going to take a whole group of them to Trenton
- I told them I was going to take them to Trenton
- We’ve agreed to do away with “beyond a reasonable doubt” when we get there
Enter your pick for most damning in the comments.