Chris Christie, corruption buster.
The candidate for NJ governor, running on a Mr. Clean ethics platform to rein in spending and taxes, turns out to be a big spender himself — on the government dime.
FOIA expense documents: Traveling to Atlantic City from Newark to attend an attorneys' meeting, Christie ran up a tab for a $700 limousine trip. Well it was round trip.
As for his pledge to tame the state's spending, Christie far, far exceeded on his own, the government's daily hotel allowance amounts, living high at $449/night+ taxes for lodging in Boston in 2007; $475 in D.C. at the Four Seasons. As US attorney, it was on your dime. His subordinate ran up the same $449 tab on the same trip – then the 2 of them each signed off on the other's expense reports.
More serious though, is Christie's awarding of "monitoring contracts" worth millions, to John Ashcroft, David Kelley, and Christie associates.
The contracts to oversee the behavior of orthopedic implant (knee and hip) makers Biomet, Stryker, Zimmer, and hospital UMDNJ (Univ of Medicine and Dentistry) were swallowed by the health firms in lieu of prosecution for fraud in a case settled by Christie's office.
For the "deferred prosecution", Zimmer was pressured by Christie to ok a contract paying flat fees to Ashcroft's law firm that total up to $52 million. As for the "monitoring fee" for UMDNJ to Christie confidant Herber Stern for $3 million, that one is borne by Jersey taxpayers.
Lawyer David Kelley's involvement is most interesting. Why? Because Kelley was the prosecutor who let Todd Christie (Chris Christie's brother) off the hook in a case of 1600 illegal trades.
It doesn't look good, says Republican former state sen. Dick LaRossa.
And Ashcroft was Christie's boss, when Bush hired the attorney.