I have been trying to wrap my head around that news conference by NJ Gov. Christie for an entire week. All I can come up with is that his legal and political advisers committed a serious case of malpractice.
There are some really basic things that any respectable attorney will tell their client who has been or could be charged with a criminal act(s); "Keep your mouth shut". There are some corollaries to this. If you have to talk do the following:
1) Listen to the question very carefully,
2) Breath, wait a few seconds to collect your thoughts. Don't just start talking,
3) Give a short concise answer, preferably a "yes" or "no" answer,
4) DO NOT VOLUNTEER ANY INFORMATION not specifically related to the question,
5) Get off the stand as fast as possible
These same pieces of advise go for a politician as well, and for the same reason. Any attorney and political strategist will tell you the same thing; the more you talk, the more you open yourself to making inconsistent statements. These inconsistencies can lead a good investigator and/or examining attorney to ask more questions, getting more potentially damaging information. But they don't have to even do that.
When a witness makes inconsistent statements, the statementsy are most assuredly going to come back to bite them. It is called credibility. A juror is allowed to extrapolate that a witness is not telling the truth on a major issue in a case based on inconsistencies even on more minor issues.
hungrycoyote has a great diary about this called, Rachel Maddow Destroys Any Credibility Chris Christie Might Think He Still Has. She points out a number of conflicting statements by the Governor. Many of these conflicting statements beg for answers to other questions, such as the "two sleepless nights" or "one sleepless night" statements.
Lawrence O'Donnell did a fake campaign ad on his show last night How the GOP will attack Christie. He says he did this while watching the news conference. It is pretty good, and I recommend watching it. Just think of what could be done with a little thought and time.
You could kinda think of the news conference as a deposition, and no he isn't under oath but being caught in a lie even when not under oath is damaging. Every absolute statement that he made in that news conference that comes to be proven false or has information that makes you doubt his veracity is just fodder for campaign commercials. All of the volunteered statements of fact are seeds that can grow into new areas of investigation.
So a little free advise to the Governor, get yourself a good lawyer and sue your current lawyer for letting you go out there and screw yourself. And while you're doing that sue your political advisers for the same thing. And sue yourself, because any attorney who gives themselves advice has a fool for a client, and you sir must be one big fool.
P.S. When you are sitting in your prison cell, you will have lots of time to file your Post Conviction Relief petitions. In case you were too busy laying the groundwork for your political career instead of being a true prosecutor, that is what you file when you claim you were not adequately represented in your criminal case.