IN NEWARK, a jury of 12 ordinary people made an emotionally complex choice on Friday. Across America, millions of voters face another kind of choice that is also dripping with emotion.
What a fine mess we’ve created.
In this year when the words weird and politics seem joined in ways that defy logic, it seems shocking that we were watching the last stages of the Bridgegate trial just as we are also watching the last days of one of the nation’s strangest presidential campaigns.
It almost seems as if we have been following a badly mangled script, with a penultimate scene that hauntingly echoes the awkward moment in “The Godfather,” when Vito Corleone, grieving over the gangster assassination of his son, calls a meeting of rival mobsters.
“How did things ever get so far?” Corleone asks this grim group. “I don’t know. It was so – unfortunate – so unnecessary.”
To say that the Bridgegate scandal and the antics of the presidential campaign are “unfortunate” and “unnecessary” is an understatement. The story of the plot to punish Fort Lee’s mayor with massive traffic jams — a story supported by a unanimous jury verdict on Friday — seems almost surreal now, certainly unfortunate and unnecessary to politics and real life as it ought to be conducted.
The same could be said of the seemingly surreal series of events that led to one presidential candidate being investigated by the FBI and the other being targeted for sexual harassment of women, not to mention a string of insulting statements that would have tripped up most other candidates.
The deeper question is how all this happened. Or as Don Vito asked of his fellow mobsters: “How did things ever get so far?”
This is where the Bridgegate verdict and Tuesday’s presidential election leave us flat.
After six weeks of testimony that led to Friday’s verdict and another week of jury deliberations, the trial of two former allies of Governor Christie for their alleged roles in a plot against Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich with massive traffic jams still leaves far too many questions unanswered.
At the top of the list is a question that that will likely continue to haunt this trial long af
ter the jury reaches a verdict: Why were only two people charged?
Bill Baroni, who was once the second highest ranking executive at the Port Authority, and Bridget Anne Kelly, the former deputy chief of staff to Governor Christie, were convicted on nine federal charges of creating crippling traffic jams in Fort lee by closing local access lanes to the George Washington Bridge. Their alleged co-conspirator, David Wildstein, a well-known goofball political prankster and teller of tall tales, pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with federal authorities in their case against Baroni and Kelly.
But the traffic gridlock on Fort Lee’s streets had barely dissipated when questions emerged about a far wider conspiracy of political bullying that led right to the doors of Christie’s office.
For months, federal prosecutors have fought efforts to make public a secret list of co-conspirators and others who escaped indictment. In his opening statement on behalf of the prosecution on the first day of the trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Vikas Khanna conceded that evidence “may show that others could have, should have, perhaps knew certain aspects of what was going on in Fort Lee. Perhaps you will even wonder: What happened to those people?”
We don’t know how the final history of Bridgegate will be written — not yet. But it would not be shocking if political historians conclude that they agreed wholeheartedly when defense attorney Michael Critchley turned away from jurors toward the doors of the courtroom in his final arguments, cupped his hand over his mouth and yelled: “Chris Christie, where are you?”
Christie was mentioned frequently during the trial, often with the implication that he knew about the lane closures as they were taking place and then went along with a plan to set up Kelly and Baroni as easy scapegoats. But Christie may not have been alone. Several key witnesses say that Christie’s Chief of Staff Kevin O’Dowd, his chief counsel Charles McKenna, his top political strategist Michael DuHaime, his campaign manager Bill Stepien and his press secretary Michael Drewniak also knew plenty.
So why weren’t they scrutinized more?
On Friday, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, who had seemed unusually defensive when he was asked this question in recent weeks, did not leave out the possibility of a wider investigation into Bridgegate. The issue is clearly a sensitive issue for his office – and rightly so.
Fishman says that he only seeks indictments of suspects who he believes are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Fine. But the Bridgegate case seems to embrace many corners of what has been defined as “Christie world.” So it’s worth asking whether this world will be fully explored by federal investigators in the coming months.
That sort of nagging question is precisely why the Bridgegate case has become far more than a frustrating political tale. The mere fact that some high-ranking members of Christie’s staff may escape scrutiny has emerged as one of the emotional thorns of this case that will likely not disappear with a jury verdict.
Nation’s emotional heart
In a way, this is the legacy that the entire nation faces with Tuesday’s presidential election. This isn’t about politics as much as the nation’s emotional heart.
During the past six months, I’ve tried to cover this election from the ground, listening to ordinary voters about their views of the nation.
I began this journey in a hotel banquet room in New Brunswick. More than 100 unemployed middle-aged, middle managers, who lost jobs when their corporations moved to other nations or to southern states where they could hire workers for lower salaries, gathered to talk about the frustrating search for new jobs and self-esteem. What many lamented, however, was a loss of the American Dream.
I doubt this presidential election will quiet those laments. Nor will it quiet the concerns of some Hispanic and Muslim voters who wonder whether they will be rejected or embraced after this election season in which they have been targeted for scorn.
And finally, what of America’s blue collar factory workers? How will this presidential election answer their concerns, especially in a New Jersey city like Garfield?
In June, I spent several weeks on Garfield’s streets, listening to former factory workers describe how the outflow of jobs broke the community’s spirit, leaving behind blocks of empty buildings that once were home to textile mills. There has been much talk in this campaign about bringing back more factory jobs across America. But what about that broken spirit?
This is the final legacy of Bridgegate and this strange election season. Yes, we have heard much about how our political system has broken down.
But the nation’s broken spirit will be far more difficult to heal.
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