These are brand new allegations being made by 3 former commissioners of the NJ Ethics Commission. From the Star-Ledger:
A complaint filed with the State Ethics Commission alleged that a member of Gov. Chris Christie’s staff used her state email account to influence her county health department to handle some feral felines on her property in Bordentown. A minor matter, it seemed.
By the time it was over, the executive director of the ethics commission was out of a job at the request of the governor’s office, replaced by one of Christie’s own lawyers, who was later given a judgeship by the governor.
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.
...
By Christmas, Wiechnik was told she would be removed as director.
Andrew Berns, the chairman of the ethics commission, summoned Wiechnik to a meeting in Trenton and told her she had to step down. Schluter said Berns explained the move to him by saying "the governor wants his own person."
(my bold)
http://www.nj.com/...
The whole point of the NJ Ethics Commission is to make sure all public servants, including and perhaps especially the Governor, behave ethically in office and can be held accountable. The fact that Christie rigged this agency and installed his own BFF crony to lead it implies to me that he intended to behave unethically, if not criminally, going forward.
Big h/t to a2nite for sending me the story! Xoxo