New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at a 2013 meeting of the Republican Governors Association, the organization devoted to electing GOP governors that he now heads
When the law firm hired by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to conduct an internal investigation of the Fort Lee lane closure scandal released its findings, the lead attorney took great pains to
defend the investigation's independence, even declaring himself to be a Democrat:
I met Governor Christie for the first time in mid-January the day we were hired. Yes, I was Giuliani’s former deputy mayor and I’m also a former prosecutor and as you two both know, I’m an independent Democrat, life-long.
But what he didn't mention
was this:
Nine days before a team of its top lawyers made public a report clearing Governor Christie in the George Washington Bridge scandal, the law firm donated $10,000 to the Republican Governors Association, a group he heads.
As with so many other nuggets of information in the scandal, this doesn't prove what Christie did or didn't know about the lane closure scheme. But it is yet another example of how Christie and his team have a tendency to leave out or misrepresent the facts in order to make him look good, and it provides yet another reason to be skeptical of anything he or his team says.