New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, fresh off his weekend of being called out for lying about Donald Trump's birtherism, is seeing one of his own scandals blow up again. Two of Christie’s former underlings are on trial for the George Washington Bridge lane closures, and prosecutors opened the trial by saying Christie knew what his aides were doing at the time:
Prosecutors from the United States attorney’s office said that two of the alleged co-conspirators in the case, David Wildstein and Bill Baroni, had bragged to the governor about the lane closings, and that they had been done to “mess” with the mayor of Fort Lee because he had declined entreaties to endorse the governor’s re-election.
The prosecutor, Vikas Khanna, instantly advised the jury that they should not consider the actions of “others” or wonder why they were not charged.
The jury shouldn’t consider that, but it’s fair game for the rest of us to ask what Christie knew when, and why he hasn’t (yet?) been charged. He may have fallen too far for his political future to be redeemable, but he hasn’t fallen as far as he deserves.