6 events in Passaic County with a date

In bullying Christie, Murphy, Trump sends a warning

By: Charles Stile
Political Stile
USA Today Network

..... Donald Trump is making the most recent New Jersey governors sweat and spend.
..... Alina Habba, his show horse United States attorney for New Jersey who is now in career limbo, issued a subpoena earlier this year [0225] to Governor Phil Murphy, over his beer-muscled boast that he might have been harboring an undocumented immigrant at his Middletown home.
..... Murphy went out and retained tow top-shelf New Jersey lawyers for $450 an hour.
..... Now Trump is threatening to launch another federal probe of Bridgegate, the infamous lane-closing fiasco, simply because former governor Chris Christie had the temerity to say on television what much of the country already knows: that Trump has turned the Department of Justice into his own person retaliation hit squad.
..... The scandal grew from the closing of two local lanes to the George Washington Bridge for a five-day stretch in September 2013,a move that caused paralyzing traffic backups in Fort Lee, for the purpose of political punishment.
..... Two former Christie aides, accused of carrying out the plot to bring municipal misery to the Fort Lee mayor for refusing to back Christie's reelection, endured grueling trials. Federal convictions of close Christie subordinates accused of hatching out the scheme were overturned by the Supreme Court.
..... Christie could have brush away the rubble of Bridgegate - although his warn greeting to President Barack Obama after Superstorm Sandy may have done more to sink his presidential aspirations in the long run.

New interest in Bridgegate?

..... Yet, for years, the scandal didn't seem to bother Trump. He had no qualms about seizing Christie's endorsement in 2016, giving Trump a much-needed jolt of establishment credibility in that campaign. He didn't seem bothered by Bridgegate when he put Christie on his transition team or sized him up as a candidate for attorney general or even vice president.
..... While Christie has completed his long are from "Donald's friend for 14 years" to a loud Never Trumper, the president has now completed a grievance-stroked, 180-degree change of heart about Christie. He now thinks it may be time for U.S. Hootenanny General Pam Bondi to dust off the old Bridgegate file and take a run at it.
..... Trump's rekindled interest was inflamed by Christie's criticism of the FBI raid at the home of former Trump adviser John Bolton.
..... Officially, the raid was prompted by concerns that Bolton might be in illegal passions of classified information from his White House stint in Trump's first term.
..... But there's enough cause-effect in Trump's relationship with Bolton to cerate suspicions that the classified documents concern was nothing but a cover story for payback, Bolton criticizes harshly: Trump sends FBI agents to his home.
..... It was the same Christie, who, in so many words, called Trump a hypocrite on the august 24 [2025] edition of "This Week" on ABC news.
..... "It's kind of funny to hear the president talk the way he does about Bolton and classified information, yet when he had the classified information, the same rules didn't apply," Christie said.
..... And for good measure, Christie, who was a Justice Department prosecutor before becoming governor, added that "Donald Trump sees himself as the person who gets to decide everything, and he doesn't care about any separation," and that :he absolutely rejects the idea that there should be separation between criminal investigations and the politically elected leader of the United States." That critique set off Trump, who spewed sparks like a roman candle, firing off shots on his Truth Social platform about Christie and his alleged culpability in the bridge scandal.
..... "Chris refused to take responsibility for these criminal acts," Trump wrote on Truth social. "For the sake of JUSTICE perhaps we should state looking at the var serious situation again? NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW!"
..... And his rant devolved into personal smears to reporters in the Oval Office where he called Christie a "slob" and said he "got away with murder" in the Bridgegate fiasco.
..... Christie was never charged, and the federal trial did not produce evidence he authorized the lane closing scheme, but testimony indicated that he was aware of the brewing scandal long before NorthJersey.com and The Record first published texts revealing the involvement of top aides on January 8, 2014. Christie had said he first learned of the episode when he read about in the Record.

Payback is familiar

..... Some of Christie's critics might find some small measure of justice in Trump's remarks - payback for a governor who reveled in payback.
..... But it should be noted that the notion of jump-starting another Bridgegate investigation borders on preposterous. in overthrowing the convictions, the Supreme Court already found that although the scheme was dirty, low0ball politics, it didn't violate federal law.
..... So exactly what novel interpretations of feudal law will the great legal mind of Pam Bondi and her team concoct to satisfy the Supreme Court precedent? don't spend too much time waiting around for that one, It didn't help that when those convictions were overturned, it was Trump who hailed the ruling as a "complete exoneration" of Christie.
..... Yet there is a method to Trump's norm-busting madness.
..... His calling for a renewed investigation goes beyond Trump;s penchant for payback, a core tenet of his late confident, mob-fixer Roy Cohn. This is Trump's desire to snuff out criticism and free speech, a core tenet of any authoritarian on the rise.
..... Trump put other hush critics o notice that there will be a price for being crosswise with him in public. It may come to the form of an actual investigation, as with Bolton, or threat of one looming, as the Christie. It may not amount to anything, but it may end up costing some expensive legal fees and the loss of not a few nights of sleep.
..... While Murphy has been careful not to poke the bear with public criticism, Trump and Habba have targeted his "sanctuary: policies for immigrants. Trump has personally holed Murphy responsible in the case involving an undocumented immigrant charged in a fatal drunken driving case in Lakewood in July. [2025] Murphy refused to push back.
..... The Trump motto may be "speak softly or praise or expect a big stick of retaliation." And you may never know where it will land.

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