Newark Star-Ledger:
Now, three former commission officials, breaking four years of silence, are accusing the governor’s office of unprecedented interference with an agency set up to be free of political influence. Christie, they say, pushed the agency commissioners to replace the executive director — at a time when she was investigating a member of his own staff — thus crossing a line no other governor had before.
One of the three officials is a former Republican state senator who served as the Ethics Commission vice chairman. Essentially, the claim is that Christie fired the Ethics Commission chairwoman after she refused to provide the name of a citizen who had filed an anonymous complaint against a Christie administration official who had allegedly interfered with a state agency decision dealing with feral cats. The official—surprise, surprise—worked for Bill Stepien and Bridget Anne Kelly, the two former Christie aides at the center of the Fort Lee lane closure scandal. Of course, the Christie administration denies doing anything wrong, because what could possibly be wrong about firing the head of a supposedly independent ethics commission when she refuses to expose the identity of someone accusing the administration of improprieties?