When I was in college, I took International Relations. As I recall, the people in leadership positions during crises are referred to as "actors." A lot of what we learned had to do with patterns that actors engage in psychologically in order to explain what they are doing. Options range from "absolutely psychotic" to "rationally looking to work the situation out to the benefit of the country."
In between there was another option: That of the actor who kept doing the same thing, no matter what, even if it was no longer working.
Enter Chris Christie. Behind the high-profile legal whitewash designed to clear him and allow him to think about a presidential run again was the same bad behavior that got him into trouble in the first place - namely bullying, threatening and punishment.
Dawn Zimmer is not living in reality. She must be the dragon lady because she was smiling at the governor at one point and now she says the administration was extorting her. Bridget Kelly must have been motivated by an irrational anger (or depression) because her boyfriend dumped her - so she lashed out at the Mayor of Fort Lee.
Is it possible to have a cover up of a cover up? Because the Christie crew is just doing the same thing. Lying through their teeth and eviscerating people in order to make sure that we are distracted from the other stuff. What stuff?
As has already been pointed out by many, this legal document doesn't release the statements made by interviewees. It's incredibly shoddy work. That's one thing.
David Samson is deep in it and he resigned today. That's a HUGE deal because he is the connection between all of the half-dozen scandals or so (exception: The Hunterdon County sheriff's office scandal). And Christie kept him. But not anymore. That's another thing.
Finally, there's this. Christie is now, definitively, on record telling a lie to the public. When he dragged his fake victimized persona out in front of cameras in January, he very clearly said that the first time he heard of the scandal was on the previous day when the emails were released.
This report claims that he called a meeting in December and tearfully asked his staff to come clean.
So there it is. A lie. An undeniable, bold-faced lie. And when a politician gives you one, there are usually plenty more. And that's the final thing.
For Chris Christie, the solution to this crisis is to keep on behaving the same way. Back to that International Relations class for a moment. If memory serves, the "actors" that behaved that way ended up badly. And there's no reason to believe the result will be any different for the current governor of the Garden State.