Today the Wall Street Journal reports the following:
Christie Cabinet Member Told of Bridge Lane Closures
A cabinet-level member of Gov. Chris Christie's staff was alerted within hours of the discovery and reversal of lane closures at the George Washington Bridge, email correspondence released by legislative investigators shows...
This is the part that got me thinking:
Ms. Egea is a longtime member of Mr. Christie's inner circle and one of his ten most senior staff members.
What got me curious?
I have worked in several U. S. Congressional offices where 5 or 6 top staffers are crammed into about 250 ft. sq. with copiers, fax machines, file cabinets and no cubicles. A partition with no door separated the CoS office. Everyone heard everything. If you have seen The Distinguished Gentleman, that is a realistic display of freshman Member offices.
An old Huffington Post article once described Congressional offices this way:
Most of the suites available to freshmen were standard three-room affairs of roughly 800 to 1,047 square feet: reception, the lawmaker's office and a separate space for about a half-dozen staff members. In some, the reception room was bifurcated by a temporary wall erected to give senior aides their own space.
So here is why I am curious. I'm sure we have members who have been in the governor's office complex. Are Christie staff members spread down a long hallway in private rooms? Are they in a single bullpen? Or something in between? Do they share the same printer and fax machine?
It is now an established fact through Ms. Egea, more than one member of Christie's senior staff knew of the cover-up and potential law breaking all the way back to September 13th.
I'm curious to know, just on the basis of physical space, how easy it would have been for AT LEAST TWO senior staff members to have kept that information secret from the remainder of the senior staff.