N.J. Taxpayer Tab: Christie's $10M Legal Bills For Bridgegate

Looks like all New Jersey taxpayers are picking up a hefty tab for costs associated with the bridge-closing payback scandal involving Gov Chris Christie.

Taxpayers have been billed more than $10 million for legal services performed for the Christie administration in the “Bridgegate” scandal since the beginning of 2014, according to reports.

The Associated Press report says the bills include cash for at least one firm that is still owed money from the governor’s 2013 re-election campaign.

The state Attorney General’s Office has released invoices showing the governor’s office spent $2.3 million on digital forensics firm Stroz Friedberg in 2014 and 2015. Christie’s 2013 gubernatorial campaign used Stroz Friedberg to respond to subpoenas from the U.S. Attorney’s Office and still owes the firm nearly $362,000, according to the report.

Those bills were in addition to the $8 million Christie’s administration spent through December for services from the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher firm. Millions more have been spent on outside lawyers by a legislative committee and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, according to News12.

The campaign also owes more than $600,000 to Patton Boggs of Newark for services related to the case. Christie’s 2013 campaign treasurer, Ron Gravino, said the debt is outstanding and state election law prohibits it from being forgiven, according to The Miami Herald.

The N.J. Election Law Enforcement Commission granted a request from the campaign in February 2014 to continue raising money to answer the subpoenas, even though the firms were never paid what they were owed, according to the report.

The ”Bridgegate” scandal — the George Washington Bridge lane-closing political payback scheme that led to a guilty plea and the indictment of two ex-Christie aides — became Christie’s first political setback soon after he was re-elected by a landslide in 2013.

David Wildstein, the Chris Christie-appointed Port Authority official, has pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy connected to the case.

Former Christie aide Bridget Ann Kelly and Bill Baroni, another Christie appointee at the Port Authority, were also indicted last year in connection with the “Bridgegate” scandal, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Wildstein has admitted the scheme to close lanes at the George Washington Bridge, and create endless traffic jams over four successive mornings in the fall of 2013, was retribution to the Fort Lee mayor for not endorsing the governor’s re-election campaign, according the U.S. Attorneys Office.

N.J. Gov. Chris Christie recently dropped out of the race for the GOP presidential nomination after running a campaign that was dogged by questions related to Bridgegate.

When he announced his bid last summer, Christie became the first former or sitting New Jersey governor to launch a presidential campaign since President Woodrow Wilson, although Robert Meyner received 43 votes at the 1960 Democratic Convention.

Christie banked on his brash image — an approach that served him well when he provided an aura of strong leadership during the worst of Superstorm Sandy in 2012 — to carry him to the GOP nomination.

In his home state, however, his approach also could be wearing thin. A recent poll shows he has a 30 percent approval rating in New Jersey, which is among the lowest approval ratings for any of the state’s governors in the past 25 years.

Until Bridgegate, many voters saw Christie as the man who helped lead a devastated state through the worst storm to ever hit its shores. Superstorm Sandy created a path of destruction from Bergen to Cape May counties, destroying century-old landmarks and tourist attractions, and causing billions of dollars in destruction.